Love Her Anyway
by define-serenity
Summary: [Barry/Caitlin] One day, as he's exploring the woods around North Hollow, Barry hears a voice which leads him to an abandoned house in the forest. Unaware of any dangers, he makes a terrible discovery up in the attic, one that's certain to turn his life around. BEAUTY & THE BEAST elements.
1. Chapter 1

**author's notes:** Written for **Snowbarry Week 2016** , Day 2: supernatural.

.

 **& LOVE HER ANYWAY**

part one

.

why is it always the woman who has to see past the beast in the man?  
why does she always have to clean his wounds, even after he has damaged her beyond repair?  
why is it always the man who is worthy of forgiveness for being a monster?

I want to see the beast in the beauty. the half smile, half snarl. the unapologetic anger.  
I would like to see the man forgive the monster. to see her, blood and all, ... & love her anyway. C.S.

.

"Once upon a time, when the days were long, and the nights were deep, the Dark dwelled in the fringes of the human world.

"Each night it tried to invade, and each night it failed, beat back by the Light that lived in every living being."

"Inside me, too, mom?" Barry asked, and looked up from his pillow, at his mom's red hair gleaming in the moonlight, at her soft mesmerizing smile, and skin that shone as if kissed by diamonds.

His mom stroked a hand down his cheek. "Especially you, my beautiful boy."

"Why would the Dark even try?"

Nora Allen thought on this a moment, watching as stars danced in her young son's eyes. "The Dark knows no right or wrong like we do, Barry. It knows only how to destroy and take away the Light."

"Tell the story about the boy," Barry insisted.

His mom nodded. "One night, many thousands of years ago, before mankind could speak or write, a young boy wandered too far from his tribe.

"Before long, he got lost. He called out but no sound came. He ran far, but found nothing but unrelenting desert. And so, the Dark came for him.

"It was careful at first, for in this boy, too, there lived a Light, a Light that could destroy the Dark. But as the night grew deeper still, the Light got smaller and smaller inside the boy, scared that he might never find his family again. Scared that he might never make it home.

"The little boy, too young to know the real dangers the night held, looked inside the Dark, and found the Dark staring back at him.

"That is, how they say, the first Demon was born. Preying on a helpless child."

Barry shivered underneath his sheets, and cuddled closer to his mom.

"For centuries the Dark tried, and came, and infected those most vulnerable, turning humans into monsters. Humans, in turn, made those monsters into myth."

"Why would they do that, mom?" Barry asked. "Make up stories when they were real?"

"People are afraid of what they can't explain."

"And then the Purge came, didn't it, mom? All the demons wanted to kill us."

"That's right. The Dark wanted to rid the world of humans, kill all the Light inside us, so that it could reign eternal."

"But the Light came too," Barry jumped ahead in the story, to his most favorite part he'd learned by heart. When he grew up he would be as great a storyteller as his mom; he knew that for a fact. "And beat back the Dark."

His mom smiled. "That's right."

"Is the Dark gone, mom? Do demons still exist?"

Nora Allen leaned in and kissed her son's forehead.

"Light can't exist without the Dark, Barry."

 _.. wake up..._

Barry wakes with a start, in a sweat set cold on his skin over the course of the night. Startled, he rubs over the burn his dream leaves behind, right over his heart, one he's gotten used to, because even after all these years the ache persists.

He sits up, blinking at the harsh sunlight filtering through the curtains. It's too hot for the time of year, inside and outside the house, as if the Sprites and Undine had stolen pockets of heat over the summer and brought them out to play. They were meant to have shifted into fall weeks ago, closing in on winter, but while the leaves browned and fell and rotted on the forest floor, the temperature hadn't kept pace. He'd like to say that's unusual, but nymphs were often free and whimsical.

A clatter sounds through the bungalow, followed by muffled profanity. He throws on a shirt and heads down in search of his dad, tracking him underneath the sink of their small picturesque kitchen.

"Dad? What's going on?"

"It's this damn leak." His dad curses, and clinks a wrench against a random pipe.

"Stop!" He runs over, stealing the wrench before his dad can do any real damage, like the last time he tried to fix anything in the house. "I got it."

He crawls in next to his dad, who leaves to give him more room, and gives one bolt a few stern turns, shutting down the steady _drip-drip_ that'd accompanied many of their meals. He probably should've gotten to this sooner.

"You have to give it a little love," he says, stands, and closes the kitchen cabinets.

His dad slaps at his back. "You have your mother's hands, son."

The familiar words set ablaze his heartburn, but soothe it at the same time—it's a sad yet calming thought, to think his mom's magic still alive, a dormant reminder he carried with him. Dormant, because for all the magic his mom and her family had been blessed with, not an ounce of it lived inside him.

Most half-breeds tended to inherit something from both parents, but his mom's Sprite magic had never shown in him. The thought that somehow that magic might exist in his natural ability to fix things barely helped staunch his disappointment. Being human never put anyone at a disadvantage, but he would've liked to carry some part of his mom with him.

Barry makes himself and his dad an omelet, flavored by herbs he tries to keep alive in the garden, and watches his dad read the newspaper at the kitchen table, like he does most days.

He bites the inside of his cheek. "I had the dream again," he says, none too sure it's a subject he should broach.

His dad hums, acknowledging that he heard what he said, but leaves it at that. He'd spoken about the dream before, because he'd had the same one every night for the past three weeks. What if someone out there was trying to tell him something? What if a creature had sprinkled dust in his eyes, bringing him dreams of his mother for a specific reason?

"Dad."

"What do you want me to say, Barry?" His dad looks up, something akin pity in his eyes. "It's not uncommon for you to dream about your mom."

Dreaming about his mom wasn't odd, but the same dream word for word for weeks on end couldn't be a coincidence.

His mom used to tell him that same story before bed almost every night, and as he grew older the story grew with it. Now the Purge was no longer set 'once upon a time' but only a few years before he was born. Demons had referred to it as a cleansing, hoping to eradicate all that was good in the world one human at a time. If he could believe the stories, and he did, the world had come close to the end times.

Without help from the Light, mankind would not have survived.

The world owed magic a lot.

It is said that magic itself –both Light and Dark- breathed life into the universe, into the first small living cell that evolved into everything they knew today.

In the years following the Purge the big metropolises found their footing again, and humans and magic kind alike rebuilt, repopulated, restarted life as it had never been lived before. Side by side.

In the fringes of that world, the Dark continued on. Waited. Anticipated.

Often, the Dark still won, like it had fourteen years ago, when it came for the Light inside his mom.

It was for that reason his dad had moved them both out to the country, where there were plenty of humans who'd decided on a quiet life undisturbed by magic, and were all of them in need of a doctor.

After breakfast and a shower he meets his dad in his study, waiting for him to fill the prescriptions he delivers around the village every week. Many of the villagers were either old or infirm and his dad never expected them to travel the distance for their pills.

A brisk walk from town, right out by the lake, the cottage they rented was nothing more than a large bungalow where they each had their own room, shared a bathroom, and his dad had a study where he could see to those patients that did make the trip.

Back in the city things had been different. His dad shared a practice with his mom, where she healed magic kind with her hands and herbs she grew out in their small garden, and his dad tended to the humans in his care. Every day there had been an adventure, there'd been something new to learn, a new creature to get to know, and the Dark never crept into his nightmares quite so often, or so easily.

"These are painkillers for Mrs. Bates," his dad says, stapling his instructions to a small paper bag holding the pill bottle. "It's really important that she takes one every day."

"I'll let her know."

His dad holds the bag just out of reach.

"I'll tell her three times, dad." He laughs. "Don't worry."

Smiling, his dad relinquishes the last of the prescriptions and lets him go on his way. He grabs his backpack and stores all the prescriptions inside, along with a book and an apple for the road. He likes to consider these his days off, so he tends to drag out his rounds for hours.

North Hollow, Connecticut moved at a speed the city unlearned decades ago, and he daresay he still hadn't quite adjusted. He still couldn't resist racing into the woods as fast as his legs would allow, slowing down right before he hit the bridge over the stream where he could listen to the unbroken cascade of the water- the wood of the bridge creaky and slippery, in a constant state of disrepair, but somehow it survived each winter intact; the woodland spirits saw to that.

Despite now living in –what he called- the middle of nowhere, the woods managed to bring him the kind of calm and peace his mom instilled in him by simply being near him- her own connection to the forest, from the dark soil where everything sprouted to the bird's nests high up in the trees, made sure he appreciated his surroundings all the more.

He pauses, breathing in the rich green scent of moss, the birdsong, the wind rustling like whispers through the trees. If he reached out he could touch the gentle breeze bringing the forest to life, track its current through the tree trunks, and tune into a timeless rhythm.

He kneels and stretches five fingers deep into the ground, the soil beneath cold and wet.

He smiles, and closes his eyes, thinking back on the days when his mom did the same and saplings would sprout, or flowers in the most vibrant colors.

His fingers aren't quite so magical.

The woods that border the village on three sides are about the only things North Hollow had going for it. Each day since the morning they arrived had been the same; he and his dad had breakfast together, and then went their own way- his dad tended to his patients, while he did his chores and disappeared into his books; he made his dad lunch and brought it to him, went back to his books, and then later they had dinner together.

Since North Hollow didn't house a school, most of the kids around here were homeschooled, and so he learned everything he knew from the books he ordered online, or his mom's books, which he snuck down from the attic and read in secret.

When he turned eighteen he'd hoped to go into the city and apply to the small community college there, but his dad wouldn't allow it. Deep down he knew his dad's reluctance was born out of fear, that Henry Allen would never survive losing his son too, but he couldn't help but somewhat resent his dad for limiting his choices. Choices that should've been his own to make.

He had the smarts to make it as far as his dad and become a doctor, but he dreamed of being a healer like his mom- help not only humans, but every creature under the sun, the moon, and the stars.

His dad argued that any degree he wanted he could acquire online these days, and while that was definitely true, studying on his own had grown tiresome and lonely, especially with his dad doing overtime. Every day looked the same. Every day got harder than the one before. It's been three years of online courses, slowly watching his degree creep closer, and they've been the longest of his life.

He'd give about anything for some more excitement around here.

"Good morning, Barry," say Mrs. Bates, and Mr. Corcoran, and Mr. Blanchard, as well as the baker, and the bookshop owner, and every other person he runs into as he skips into one house after the other, delivering ointments, pills and bandages.

"Morning," he greets time and time again, sticking around for small talk, coffee and pie in more than a few instances, and socializes with people who wouldn't know he existed if his dad didn't send him on these runs.

He likes it here well enough; he's not a contrary guy and gets along with most people- he just wants more. More than this provincial town.

His last stop is a new one, a Zacharia Hunter who recently moved to town and had a bad heart, so he needed a lot more delivered than merely his medication. New arrivals weren't uncommon; plenty of older people got tired of city life, the crowd and the haste of the busy streets, a world that moved faster each short moment that passed—

What he wouldn't give to live in all that frenzy, to watch humans and magic kind live and work side by side, to be smack in the center of a life his parents both envisioned for him- a doctor _and_ a healer, or maybe something in between.

Had that future faded with his mom's Light?

His new route takes him deeper into the woods, well past any part he'd ever explored.

A narrow unpaved access road leads from the main road into the forest again, winding around trees, both saplings and elders, deeper and deeper into the woods. He hopes the trail doesn't take him much further; each inch of this forest looks the same and if he missteps it's easy to get lost.

He's been walking for close to twenty minutes when a small car honks behind him, forcing him off the trodden path.

Mr. Albert raises his hand and waves from behind the wheel, probably on his way to deliver groceries to Zacharia.

 _.. Barry ..._

—something whispers behind him.

He whirls around and calls, "Who's there?" to the trees along the road, the shrubs and dead leaves, but as soon as he does he can't be sure he heard anything at all. Had he not heard his name? Who around here would call out to him? There's never anyone out in these woods.

Looking back at the path, safe to travel again, he thinks he should be on his way to see Zacharia, finish his rounds so he can settle in his favorite spot near the church, and read.

He should keep going.

 _... over here .._

Wind catches at his fingers.

 _.. come ..._

What could be out there for him to see? He hasn't explored this part of the woods, not as extensively as west of the village, because nothing's brought him this far out before. It might not be safe.

A shiver traipses up his spine. Straying from the paths around here can be dangerous; the Dark lurks in the shadows as surely as it does in the city, and he'd do well steering clear.

 _... help_..

Still.

Where's the harm in having a quick look?

Barry trips a step to his right, further off the beaten path, into an unknown part of the forest- it looks no different than the parts he did know, the same shifting hints of green, the same kind of birdsong filling him with peace and calm, so what's drawing him here? Who's calling to him?

There might well be Tricksters behind this.

He pushes deeper still, and soon, through the thick foliage of trees and shrubs, he can make out a house, paint flaking around the windows, rotting wood-

He moves in closer, the wet leaves beneath his feet making him stumble, but he's afraid that if he blinks the house will disappear like a mirage, as if it were never there.

Are his eyes deceiving him?

Sunlight bathes the clearing he comes to in oranges and browns, falling over a once beautiful home, left abandoned to nature. One side of the house has overgrown with evergreen ivy and periwinkle, purple flowers winding inside some of the first floor windows, while the sun surely catches at the dust dancing in the rooms downstairs.

Something giggles at his shoulder.

He startles, and looks to his right, but finds nothing but air.

There's a force at work here, following him through these woods. Was it his imagination, or was he being led?

He looks back to the house, and shivers.

Despite the obvious wear and tear exposure the elements caused, it appears to be in a fairly good state—no holes poked through the walls or the roof, the porch intact, and while the windows appear dirty, few of them were broken. It's a big family home, and it appears out of place here; his forays into the woods had made him stumble onto an old church and some hunting cabins, but never anything of this size. Who would build something so grand way out here?

The three steps leading up to the porch and the front door appear inviting.

What could be inside that's so important?

He glances over his shoulder, thinking on the last pill bottle in his backpack he has yet to deliver. He should get back to the path, retrace his footsteps before he'd been led astray and forget about this place. What if it's a trick? What if the Dark is waiting for him inside the house, waiting to kill the Light inside him?

 _.. Barry ..._

A whimsical breeze catches at his neck and whispers the season's change, his name, another cry for help.

 _... help .._

He heads up the steps to the porch.

It takes him three firm tries before the front door gives way, but he soon falls inside the house, quiet like a graveyard. Dust crawls into his nose.

There's a broad staircase straight ahead, two large free spaces to his left and right; one dark with the windows blotted out by the weeds, the other light, open.

It's stiflingly hot inside the house, heat trapped in every nook, the house barely breathing under the weight of this unusual Indian summer.

The dust in the air he breathes sings, as if puppeteered by the sunlight—

.. _upstairs_...

He swallows hard, his heartbeat picking up speed.

He can still go back. He can still leave.

The door slams shut behind him with a bang, and he jumps, too scared to move another inch- the noise travels through the house like a storm, rattling shutters, glass—

Upstairs, a rustling starts.

And all the sounds from the woods die out.

What has he gotten himself into? Who would want him here? What's up there?

 _... help her_..

His mom taught him a lot about woodland spirits, being one herself, and while there were those that might wish him harm, he should be able to sense danger if there were any- the magical world built on rules similar to theirs.

There's no danger here that he can sense.

So, balling his hands into fists he takes a step forward, and another, and yet another, until he's set a steadfast pace up the stairs.

At the top of the landing, a long hallway cutting through the house left and right, he stops and waits for another sign. If he's truly needed here magic will guide the way.

To his left, at the far end of the dark hallway, a door screeches open, its hinges crying.

A thump sounds, coming from the attic.

 _.. hurry ..._

He grabs for his phone and turns on the flashlight, brightening the path ahead, and makes his way down the hallway to the attic door.

A dark staircase leads the final stretch upstairs.

A metal clinging sounds.

Had some poor animal found its way inside the house and gotten stuck?

Sweat drips down his back as he ascends the stairs, lighting his way until he reaches the top step, and finds some light filtering through a round broken window, letting in more heat still. Even though trees circled the clearing, the sun beat down on the house relentlessly, heat radiating through the attic roof.

He studies the lighted side of the attic, making sure to check the darkened rafters where the ceiling sloped, and around the central column of the chimney, but finds nothing but dirty rags, old carton boxes, thick layers of dust showing his footprints.

Come to think, there aren't any other marks in the dust.

Another metal clink echoes, coming from the darkness.

His jaw clenches. What in God's name is he doing here? What if he was wrong about not sensing any danger? The heat's so oppressive up here it's making it harder to breathe, his lungs are heavy, and he's wearing too many layers to be comfortable.

Still, he pushes into the dark, raising his phone higher to shed light.

Two white eyes stare right back at him.

"Holy Jesus!" he shouts and jumps back, and his phone drops to the floorboards.

He stands paralyzed for a moment or two, the white piercing eyes flashing behind his eyelids every time he blinks, his heart beating like a jackhammer, until other details start seeping into his peripheral vision- pale blue skin, shocks of long white hair.

A girl.

Chains clank, along with a scuttle, like fingernails being dragged along wood.

He quickly grabs for his phone again and shines the light, falling over a defenseless creature dressed in rags, barely moving.

That's why he was led here, to help this poor thing out of this scalding hot attic, and make sure she gets the medical attention she needs.

Then, his eyes fall to the shackles.

"Oh my God," he breathes, and runs a hand through his hair, moving in closer.

One end of a short chain of shackles is locked around a rafter, the other around the girl's ankle, the rust leaving behind an orange stain that's started irritating the bare skin underneath.

And he can't move.

Someone brought her here and did this to her, someone locked her up inside this house, chained her up so she wouldn't be able to escape. There's no telling how long she's been here, a prisoner, afraid for her life, and—

What kind of beast would do this? Who'd leave her here? Who—

Cold sweat grabs around his neck like an icy claw. Who wouldn't come back for her?

A pale hand grips helplessly at his feet.

" _Help_ ," the creature whimpers, voice weaker than a whisper, a final cry before she drifts out of consciousness.

He falls to his knees and pulls at the chain, at the side stuck to the rafters, but no matter how hard he tries, or how fiercely he tugs, the chain nor the wood budge; the round cuff around the girl's ankle, too, is too strong for him to open without a key.

He doesn't have the time to search the house for one.

So he does the one thing he can think of.

Without another thought he sprints down the attic stairs, down to the ground floor again, the front door swinging open for him, and each shrub or branch he had to push out of the way coming here gives way before he has to touch it.

It all makes sense now; the spirits alive in this forest led him to one of their own in need of help. How she'd gotten there and who'd put her through such horror seemed questions for later, because each minute now counted towards her survival.

He runs all the way home without stopping, down the access road and through town, across the bridge over the stream where his sneakers find sound footing, the wind at his heels giving him wings. All the while making a mental list of everything he'll need once he gets there.

He heads for the garage, where he finds a pair of bolt cutters and a flashlight, a first aid kit packed with everything he'll need. In a box on one of the shelves he finds some of his old clothes.

Outside, looking at the cottage he shares with his dad, he hesitates.

Should he ask his dad for help? He'd know more about this than anyone else in town, he'd know what to do and how to help, and—

No. His father swore off that life -his mother's life- a long time ago.

It's up to him to save this girl.

He skips into the bungalow and fills two large bottles with water, and grabs a box of defrosted Eggos.

Anything else he can come back for later.

Before he knows it he's back at the house, and nothing or no one stood in his way- he'd found his way back blindly, with little to no effort. The front door falls shut behind him once more, and he braves the stifling heat of the attic again. When he gets there, the ivy and periwinkle have disappeared from the other window, letting in more light.

Someone is watching over them, and that's an astoundingly reassuring thought.

He shrugs out of his jacket, and takes the bolt cutters out of his backpack, walking over to the girl, awake again. Whoever did this to her left her without the strength to break her own cuffs.

"Sorry that I ran off," he says, and sits down by the girl's side. "I had to get some things to help you."

"Hot," the girl chokes out, her skin turned gray.

"Yeah, I know it's-"

It strikes him then that he has no idea what species the girl is; he hasn't seen any of her kind before, not with her specific features, and if she's a half-breed like him this might not be the form she lives in. Many half-breeds, especially shape shifters, could change to and from their human form at will. Maybe the girl's a night dweller and shouldn't be exposed to the light, or maybe it's the heat or the sun that's changing her.

How should he cool the house down?

He cuts through her chains with one swift move, cutting again at the link around her ankle.

The girl instinctively pulls her leg closer, whining at the pain.

Who would do this? What monster would chain her up in the first place, and then leave her here to die?

"Hurt," the girl cries.

"I know," he says, and reaches out carefully, making sure she can see him at all times so he won't scare her. He touches a hand to her forehead, hot and clammy, though the girl seems to be shivering too. Her breathing's shallow and her heart beats rapidly, and considering she's been losing consciousness—

"I think you may have heat stroke," he says. "We need to lower your body temperature."

It's impossible to be certain, since he has no clue how long she's been here or when she last ate or drank anything, but he has to get her out of this attic no matter what. If she stays up here much longer, she'll die.

"Here." He offers the girl the bottle of water, cupping her cheek gently. "Drink this."

She takes a small sip, and starts coughing, her head lolling back and forth on the floorboards.

Best to lower her body temperature first.

"Okay, how are we going to cool you down?"

He pushes a lock of white hair from the girl's face. "I'll be right back, okay?"

Even if she might not hear him he doesn't want her to think he left her behind again.

Downstairs, he tries the door opposite the attic's, but it's locked. The door across the hall to his left does open, but one glance inside tells him it's a bedroom.

The next door is the bathroom.

"Now we're talking."

He laughs as he heads inside, wondering if anyone's listening in on his fascinating monologues. This is the last thing he thought he'd be doing when he woke up this morning, and he's still not sure he should be doing it on his own- his dad would know what to do, and he'd probably take her to a hospital, but helping magic kind hasn't been in his dad's job description for many years.

The bathroom's quite small for a house this size; a broken mirror over a small sink, while the bathtub seems to have been moved to a different angle, set beneath the window overlooking the woods. A light layer of dust mars the white acrylic, so he's surprised to find the water's still connected when he tries the tap- he opens the cold tap all the way, plugs the drain, and hurries back upstairs.

There, he shoulders his backpack again. He carefully slides an arm underneath the girl's shoulders and one underneath her knees, and picks her up from the floor. She's so light it's a wonder she's alive at all, and he prays with all his might she makes it through this- no one deserves this torture, this kind of abandonment. Why hadn't the creatures in this forest tried to find help sooner?

In the bathroom he lowers her into the bathtub, steadily filling with cold water. The girl shrieks, but doesn't struggle, settling in the tub immediately.

That's when he notices the tears running down her cheeks.

"Hey," he hushes, "You're okay."

He cups some water in his hand and traces it along her neck, hoping to cool her down as fast as possible. Ice packs would work faster, but he can't stand the thought of leaving her all alone. She's been alone long enough.

"You're okay," he whispers, and drips some water onto her forehead too, down her face, mixing gently with her tears. If he didn't know any better, he'd think her skin bluer, healthier, but that can't have happened in the two minutes since he lowered her into the tub. At least he doesn't think so.

He closes the cold tap.

Like that, silence returns to the house- the tap drips a few last drops of water, and the girl closes her eyes.

"I'm so sorry this happened to you."

His eyes trace down the girl's face, down her deep blue lips, down her neck, where he can make out needle marks along her jugular.

The clothes she's in, a dark blue dress, show obvious signs of tears, holes ripped through, possibly at her own hand. All her nails are cracked, blood where her skin's broken.

What in God's name had happened to her? What beast stole her from the world and shut her up in this forsaken place, in a town where little magic lived? How did she get here? Who was she before this?

As if reading his mind, the girl opens her eyes, all white and piercing.

"Hot."

Dipping his fingers in the water he finds it's remarkably warm already, heated by the girl's frail body.

He unplugs the drain and starts the water running again.

"I can get you some ice," he says, and brings up the bottle of water he'd offered her earlier. "Can you try and drink this while I'm gone?"

The girl looks at him, then the bottle, and nods, reaching for it with both hands.

Assured that she won't pass out again while he's gone, Barry heads out to the small grocery store in town, where the owner's kind enough not to ask why he came in to buy two 5lbs bags of ice. He's not sure he'd be quick enough to come up with a decent lie.

Back at the house he finds the girl still resting in the tub, water still running, the bottle of water empty on the floor.

Good.

Again, as if sensing his presence, the girl opens her eyes, falling to the bags in his hands.

"Please," she begs, and he shoots in action- he rips the bag open and pours it inside the tub in its entirety, hoping it won't be too much of a shock to her system.

The girl sighs gratefully, grabbing both of her hands around a few ice cubes and holds on tight, unbothered by the cold. For a moment he fears he might've been too late, that her brain has forgotten that kind of cold should hurt, so he brings his hand to her forehead, and kneels by the side of the tub.

Her fever breaks beneath his touch.

He blinks. Is that even possible? She's a magic creature of some kind and clearly not fond of the heat- maybe all she needed to regain her strength was to cool down.

"You like the cold," he says, and sits down, watching her pale-blue skin turn paler yet.

The water ripples, and the girl sticks out her ankle, the one that had been shackled. Completely healed.

"Okay"—he chuckles—"cold makes you stronger. That's one thing we know about you."

It doesn't explain how she ended up chained in the attic of an abandoned house in the middle of the forest, but he'll get to the bottom of that later- maybe once she's stronger she'll be able to say it in her own words.

"More," the girl urges.

He dumps the second bag of ice into the tub too.

The girl sits up and starts tugging at her dress until it pulls free.

His eyes widen.

"I'll just-"

He turns promptly on his heels, unable to settle his hands anywhere.

"There's some clothes in the backpack," he says, and nods, closing the bathroom door behind him. He hears the wet plop of clothes hitting the floor and more water splashing.

He should give her privacy.

At a bit of a loss for what to do now, he checks the bedroom he'd found earlier. There's a four-poster bed against the wall, and a small dresser with drawers- the room otherwise bare.

It doesn't hit him right away, but when it does a cold chill sets along his spine.

Why are there sheets on the bed?

Why is it made at all, if the house is empty and fallen into disrepair? Why was there running water in a house that hasn't been lived in for years, and had a girl chained up in the attic?

He walks over to the dresser and opens one of the drawers.

His mind reels.

There are clean clothes inside, red and blue plaid shirts for a man much bigger than him.

He stuffs the clothes back inside the drawer and closes it.

None of this makes sense.

Why would someone bring an innocent creature here, chain her up, keep her drugged, if not—

No.

No, it can't be. Not here.

He walks back out into the hallway and heads straight for the door he found locked, jiggling the doorknob. There's no key in the lock and the door seems heavier than all the others he's so far encountered in the house. Why? What made this door different? Why had the forest invaded this room from the outside and not the others?

The lock jumps open in the door.

And for the first time today he's not sure he should thank whatever magic has been looking out for him.

He pushes the door open.

It's indeed the room he'd seen from the outside, invaded by ivy and periwinkle through a broken window- but it does nothing to alleviate the sinister sense of foreboding that sets his hairs on end.

There's another unused pair of shackles on the floor.

And in the dead center of the room, there's a gurney with restraints for both hands and feet.

Not here.

A long steel table stands along the wall, all manner of tools on top. Other people might not recognize them, but being his father's son he can identify more than a few; surgical scissors and saws, amputation knives, artificial leeches, forceps, a scarificator for bloodletting, a trephine to bore into a skull- anything a surgeon might've needed in the Stone Age of medicine.

But this is no surgeon's equipment.

These are a Hunter's tools, those bogeymen who showed up after the Purge and—

He pulls the door shut and finds support against the wall, his stomach turning. Never in his life did he think he'd have to deal with this. Hunters were stories, newspaper articles that made him afraid for the world, but not anything he'd ever have to face. They're beasts who shouldn't be allowed to live; they preyed on magic kind the way the Dark had on that little boy strayed too far from his tribe and were no better, despite being human. They were the lowest of the low, selling blood, hair, bones, skin of whatever innocent creature they trapped.

One of them had brought the girl here.

Why had he left her upstairs? His footsteps were clearly visible in the layers of dust spread everywhere in the house, so no one had been here for a long time.

Why?

Had he gone elsewhere? Had he found a richer hunting ground?

Would he come back for her?

The door to the bathroom opens, the girl soon stumbling into the hallway, holding onto the doorframe to stand.

"Hey, you shouldn't try to walk." He shoots forward to help her; she's soaking wet and wearing one of his old sweaters, but her complexion has brightened, her skin has healed and dark sunken bruises have disappeared with the help from the cold.

It's nothing short of a miracle.

He helps the girl into the bedroom against his better judgment; she shouldn't be forced to remain in this place her captor created, but she needs to rest, and he doesn't have anywhere else to take her. No one in town would take her in; they've all grown too accustomed to living without the visible influence of magic- the irony is there are few aspects of their world magic didn't govern or keep in balance.

The girl sits down on the bed, and he kneels in front of her, feeling a hand to her forehead.

"Your fever's gone."

The girl makes a grab for his hand- for a second he's afraid he's overstepped his boundaries, that another man dictating her life is the last thing she needs and probably brings back bad memories, but she holds his hand, studies it as if it's the first time she's ever seen it, and looks down at her own hand too.

"I'm Barry."

She speaks, somewhat, and she's cognitive enough to make demands, so there must be someone in there who was taught to talk and write- there must be part of her that's human, buried underneath all that pain.

"Barry," the girl repeats.

"What's your name?"

At that a sadness sinks down the girl's precious face, her eyes downcast, and she releases his hand.

He shouldn't push too hard; she's been through enough.

"I have to go home."

He pulls the Eggos and the other bottle of water out of his backpack and places them next to the bed- he'll come back with something better tomorrow, but right now his dad will be wondering what's keeping him, and he's a terrible liar in the best of circumstances. It's not that he thinks his dad would do this poor creature any harm, or that his dad hates all magic, but he won't take the risk of anyone looking at her now, and thinking her a demon.

Despite all the positive changes the Light has brought into their world, there are places where people who were different were still treated unfairly.

"I'll be back tomorrow," he says, "with more food."

"Ice," the girl says softly.

He smiles. "And more ice."

Slowly, hesitantly, the girl reaches out and touches the tips of her fingers to his lips- they're cold, icy almost, and he can't figure why she'd feel the need to touch him right now.

"Okay," she whispers.

The girl turns on the bed and lies down against the sheets, curling into a small ball. His heart bleeds thinking about everything she must've been through, about the way she must've been ripped away from her life and shut up in an attic, by some vile stranger who meant to take advantage of her. How is it that there's so much darkness in this world they live in?

 _.. safe now ..._

—something whispers in an undesignated corner of the room.

He doesn't look, because he knows there won't be anything he can see there; his eyes can't see into any other dimension, and faerie kind rarely shows itself to humans.

Making his way out of the house, he turns to look at it again. He'll be back tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that- as long as the girl, or the spirits in the wood need him to.

"Keep her safe for me, okay?" he tells no one in particular as the wind takes him by the hand.

He watches evergreen slither up the steps of the porch, crawling along the boards until it reaches the door, covering the surface of it so no one will find it but him.

Magic will watch over both of them tonight.

.

.

 **tbc**

.

*the line "when the days were long, and the nights were deep" was taken from _Killjoys_ , the rest is mine!


	2. Chapter 2

.

 **& LOVE HER ANYWAY**

part two

.

.

A flash of lightning cut through the sky in the distance, like a mean claw reaching down towards the ground. Young Barry Allen stood in the wide-open window and watched the moving clouds, counting the seconds that passed.

 _Fourteen_.

 _Fifteen_.

Thunder followed.

The storm was three miles away, and getting closer.

"Mom?" Barry called out. His mom sat on her knees in between rows and rows of herbs stretching the length of the garden; there was little else in the garden besides his mom's plants. She called it her wandering forest, a small ecosystem she'd created in the middle of the city, growing, evolving. Living.

His mom gestured at him to come over.

Barry cast his eyes up at the sky, at how dark and angry it appeared and threatened to break open any moment- humidity started to fill the air, the storm imminent, yet still he caught his mother's eyes; they were green, like his, and faded into blue near the edges. Her skin seemed paler than usual, didn't shine quite like it was supposed to.

"Come here, my beautiful boy."

He stepped out onto the terrace, hurrying over once another strike of lightning lit up the air, and thunder followed more closely behind. His mom told him the tale of Raiju and Raijin each time a storm raged outside his window at bedtime, two creatures whose cries became lightning and thunder whenever they argued, and he imagined them now, shouting at each other.

"Why don't you ever take out the weeds?" Barry asked as he settled in the soil next to his mom- she never berated him for getting his clothes dirty, because hers always were. "Mrs. West always does."

Between his mom's meticulously tended rows of herbs grew wild dandelions and chickweed, nettles and plantains and thistles, all weeds he'd watched Iris' mom pluck and throw out.

"Weeds aren't bad for the garden, Barry."

"They're not?"

"Not at all." His mom pulled him closer, and he settled into her body the same way he often did when she told him a bedtime story. "They attract bees and lady bugs, and those are good for the garden. Their roots shoot deep into the ground and pull up nutrients that fertilize the soil for the other plants."

"Like- potassium!"

Nora Allen nodded. "Exactly."

Barry knew this through the many other stories his mom told him- he learned of weeds that accumulated nitrogen and phosphorous, copper and calcium, and if they weren't careful others that would collect lead in the soil. One day he would have a garden like his mom's, and he'd learn every name of every plant in the whole wide world.

"A lot of them have medicinal properties too," his mom said. "Plantains can help soothe a bee sting. Nettles can help with allergies, and you can make tea for your tummy out of catnip."

Thunder rumbled in the sky, but nothing could lure him from his mom's side now.

"There's a storm coming," his mom said, smiling as she waited for the rain to start. "It'll be good for the garden. It's been dry for too long."

Barry tucked closer into his mom side, hugging his arms around her. "Is that why you haven't been feeling well?" he asked, and remembered another story, about how gardens in a city weren't natural but manmade, and it took magic extra effort to maintain them. His mom used her magic where she could.

"It takes a lot of strength to take care of a garden." His mom drew a hand through his hair. "You have to watch and listen, anticipate its needs."

"Keep it warm?"

"Sometimes." Nora Allen regarded her young son closely, marveling once again at his ever-inquiring mind. "But the ground needs the winter freeze too, and the rain."

A first raindrop tapped at his nose, and with the rising chill he meant to head inside the house again, where he could find shelter and warmth. But his mom folded an arm around his shoulder, and pulled him into her lap.

"It's okay, Barry." She kissed the top of his head. "You're safe here."

And as the rain started falling around them, each drop coming faster than the one before, each succumbing to gravity, he sat sheltered underneath a transparent dome of his mom's magic, like a glass bubble stretched over them.

Not a drop touched him, but lit up above their heads like a small shooting star.

The ground sighed, grateful for the water, and Barry's eyes filled with hearts- this was magic at work in one of its purest forms, tapped into nature, guided by his mom's love of it, a never-ending circle of life he became part of when he was born.

"Will I have magic like you one day, mom?" he asked.

"Yes, you will," Nora Allen whispered.

 _... Barry .._

When Barry blinks his eyes open to the early light of dawn, his first thought is _Ice_. _He needs to buy more ice_. If the cold truly made his new friend stronger she would need a whole lot more of it; she had a lot of healing left to do- if not physical, then definitely mental. If that's even at all still possible after what she went through.

What else would she need?

She might be more comfortable in some of his mom's old clothes, and he could bring her some towels and soap, maybe a toothbrush. He can make her peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, and then for dinner—

No. Barry closes his eyes and sits up in bed. What is he doing? He can't keep her in that place. She's been locked in there for God knows how long. What he needs to do is take care of her to the best of his abilities and learn her name, find out where she came from, if she has a family or friends looking for her so he can take her back. That'll help her heal far better than any ice he brings her.

And he should figure out what kind of creature she is- he might be able to find a better way of communicating with her; maybe her speech is merely an affect of her human side, and it'll turn out she responds better to mental cues or his thoughts. Part of her is undoubtedly human, but he has to unravel what the other side is.

There's only one way he's going to do that.

He heads up to the attic.

It's a frightful thing, tucked between the rafters making up the short roof of the bungalow, running the length of the house, and the low ceiling means he has to crawl on all fours. His mom's books are stuffed as far to the back as his dad could manage fourteen years ago, but he tracks a clear path to them; he's been up here often enough to know exactly where they are.

He rifles through a few boxes of Pharmacopeias, but he's not looking for references to any compound medicine; several Herbology Compendiums from all over the world; and several Bestiaries that contained detailed descriptions of magic kind of old, as well as the demons of the old world. Few such beasts could still be found in their world in their true form; most everyone nowadays was at least half one thing and half something else, and it made him realize time and again that his mom's collection needed updating.

Iris, a childhood friend of his, inherited both her mother's fire as well as her father's heart, so that made hers a whole new kind of magic.

He hasn't thought of Iris, or her family, in a long time.

Ridding himself of thoughts of the past, he opens the next box, and finds what he's looking for: An Elemental Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures, all twelve volumes, written by Harrison Wells, one of his mom's oldest friends.

He can't count the amount of times his mom took him to see Dr Wells, a great and powerful Sphinx with wisdom his young mind couldn't possibly comprehend. Each time he stepped over the threshold of Dr Wells' home it felt like crossing a barrier in time- something old and ancient lived in its foundations.

They sure were magical, those days.

"Did you have the dream again?"

He looks up from his bowl of cereal, straight into his dad's hazel eyes, pulled from memories he hasn't waded through in a long time. "Hmm?"

"You're quiet," his dad says. "Did you have the dream again?"

Barry frowns. "No, I didn't."

He hadn't even noticed.

"I dreamed about the herb garden."

That beautiful garden in the city where he'd spent so much of his childhood, watching his mom grow flowers with but the touch of her fingers to the soil, learning how to identify a plant's roots for replanting, training to be a healer like his mom. In many ways, that's what he hoped to do for the mysterious girl he found in the woods; use his mom's knowledge to help her out.

Were his dreams trying to tell him something? More and more it seemed to him they weren't dreams but specific and vivid memories of his childhood, to each of them a message.

 _Light can't exist without the Dark_.

 _Gardens need close attention_.

But what purpose did they serve?

"I know you miss your mom, Barr. I miss her too."

He looks up at his dad again, who's averted his eyes- they don't talk about his mom, not like they used to, not since they moved here and his dad tried his darnedest to forget magic existed at all. But what beauty would the world hold without magic? Without the Undine and others like them regulating the seasons? Without the Sandmen safeguarding their sleep, and Morpheus guiding them away from nightmares? Without Cupids or Tennin fating people together?

How can anyone forsake magic?

"She'd be proud of you, you know that, right?"

He nods solemnly, while building a wall around all the happy memories he had of the city, afraid that his heartburn might return tenfold should he ever take it down completely.

Sometimes he isn't all too certain she would be proud. His mom's garden died with her, left behind in the wake of his grief and his dad's, abandoned to the harsh conditions of the city. He tries to keep his own version of it alive outside, but it's not the same without her; none of the rows are quite as straight, the dill and parsley grow stunted, even though they have plenty of room, and the rosemary nor the basil soak up water like they're supposed to. His mom had her magic, of course, but he thought these secrets revealed to him.

Clearly he was wrong. Maybe he didn't watch closely enough; maybe he didn't have the right ear, or he never anticipated his garden's needs the way his mom would have. His mom used her herbs to heal, as well as the weeds, and here they serve only to spice up dinner- his dad didn't have a care in the world for any of them, in his food or otherwise; he put his faith in medicine compounded in a lab.

"Do you need me for anything today, dad?"

"No," his dad says. "Why?"

"Weather's nice." Barry shrugs, hoping his lies aren't too readable in his face. "Thought I'd study outside."

"Have fun."

A few minutes later his dad leaves the kitchen and he quickly makes a lunch for two- he steals whatever supplies he needs from the pantry and stuffs them into his backpack, along with the book he took from the attic.

And then, with little other thought but the task at hand, he heads out. He has to make sure to drop by Zacharia Hunter's place for his medication- he probably won't run out of meds, but he wouldn't want to draw suspicion from his dad or anyone else around here, and he doesn't like the idea of not honoring his commitments.

It's the light chill outside that strikes him first, a steep drop in temperature that hadn't been in the least noticeable yesterday. Winter should only be a few weeks away; it's about time the magic protecting the seasonal changes got its act together.

Something huffs at his shoulder, and he smiles.

He's still being watched.

Why, though? He'd followed magic's guidance through the forest and found the girl, freed her, and hoped to reunite her with her old life once she fully recovered. Was there yet something for him to do? Or would magic see this through with him, until the end of the line?

He pulls his red hoodie from his backpack, and shrugs it on.

Time for a new day.

At the grocery store he buys two more bags of ice, a toothbrush and soap, and guesses at what size underwear the girl might wear. Mr. Albert narrows his eyes at him but charges him for everything without any prying questions, for which he's grateful- he's still at a total loss for excuses.

Despite the change in temperature the forest moves vibrant as ever- the wind has picked up speed and makes the leaves whisper, a dialogue as old as time itself he wishes he could translate.

But he's not sure that's a power even his mom had possessed.

Barry winds down to the narrow access road and follows the path for a good twenty minutes before he veers off it, back into the woods, as if he's been taking this path for years and it's as downtrodden as all the others he'd explored. Nothing could be less true; there's nothing that indicates a human influence anywhere, his footprints in the dirt erased, shrubs parting for him that would otherwise get in the way. His path lies as new as the day the forest came to be in a time long past.

The one thing that still doesn't seem to belong is the house that slowly comes into view- old and imposing it appears near regal in its size, if not for the toll negligence and exposure to the elements had taken.

As if sensing his presence, slender trailing stems of periwinkle come to life and reveal the front door of the house, purple flowers nipping at his heels before he makes his way inside.

The whole entire house changed overnight; where it was dark and blisteringly hot only yesterday all the windows have now cleared, letting in light everywhere it can reach; it smells less dusty and he can breathe without it tickling his nostrils. If the house were alive he'd hazard to say it started breathing again after years of being deprived of oxygen.

Barry drops his things at the bottom of the stairs and carries the ice upstairs.

 _.. shhh ..._

Setting down the ice in the bathroom he stalks towards the bedroom; the door's ajar like he'd left it, the girl still fast asleep in the bed, her chest almost unnoticeably rising and falling.

She seems at peace like this, statuesque, frozen for however long in a dreamless slumber.

He closes the door with a brief click of the handle.

He'll let her sleep for as long as she needs.

Downstairs, Barry takes the time to explore the house further. The room left of the stairs, the dining room, was stripped bare long ago- dust caked its floor in several layers, the light fixtures stripped down to the wires. Faint outlines on the walls betray the former presence of picture frames or paintings wherever the wallpaper hadn't come down. It's hard to imagine anyone ever having lived here, so far from town, so hidden from the outside world with little else as company but the trees and the birds, and the squirrels foraging for food.

Making his way into the back, he's not surprised to find the kitchen in working order too; there's running water and a few plates with cutlery, and a table big enough to seat two. Yet down here too, every surface is covered with layers of dust.

How could this Hunter leave the girl behind?

Had he hoped she would die here?

No matter how hard he tries he can't wrap his mind around a person so evil existing. He'd been taught the Dark lived inside the monsters in his bedtime stories until he learned demons walked the earth in disguise- like the one that stalked into their home in the middle of the night and roused his mom, sheathed its tendrils into her heart and ripped out all the Light, left him broken and motherless and hopelessly lost. That was true evil. It was indecipherable. Unnamable.

But human?

Barry wipes at a tear making its way down his cheek.

It never does him well to linger on these thoughts. Even if he were to try to make sense of it none of it would add up- it's all senseless violence for the sake of violence and it makes him sick to his stomach.

In the living room, on the other side of the stairs, there's a fireplace invaded by nature too, purple flowers wound around the heavy uneven stones. A chandelier dangles from the ceiling, and pushed into a corner there's shabby old couch covered with a dusty white sheet. He folds up the sheet, discarding it in the dining room, and drags the couch across the floorboards until it's positioned underneath the chandelier. It isn't much but at least there's a place to sit.

Then, he cracks open as many windows as he can, letting in the wind and birdsong and all of nature with it. There's no reason the house's purpose can't change- it doesn't have to remain a prison.

How old is this house? Who'd owned it? Had it been a convenient location for a Hunter to venture or did he have a connection to this place? Did anyone in town know about it? He wonders if he'd find any mention of it in old records at the town hall or the library.

Had his home of the past fourteen years unwittingly harbored a Hunter?

The floorboards creak behind him.

Turning on his heel it doesn't take him long to find the girl standing at the bottom of the stairs, fingers curled around the doorframe leading to the living room, hesitant to enter. She's wearing another sweater of his, blue this time; it almost falls down to her knees, and droops off her shoulder. Her legs are bare.

He tilts his head. "Hi."

Her eyes search his face, though he's not sure what for, and she watches his every move like a hawk. What big and beautiful eyes, he catches himself thinking, despite the stark white irises. Her white hair gleams in the morning sun, and her skin appears altogether healthier, and if it weren't for this house or the distance she chooses to keep, one might wonder how she got so hopelessly lost.

Sadly, he knows the how all too well. It's haunting to think about what happened to her, what was done to her and how she was treated. No one deserved this kind of abuse. No one's life deserved to be touched by a thing as vile as a Hunter.

"Did you sleep okay?"

Sheepishly, the girl nods. That's something, at least. Part of him wants to think it's a sign that she trusts him, that he didn't make a mistake leaving her here in this awful place that must carry memories far more terrible. But where else could he have taken her?

"I brought you some food," he says, and pushes past her, grabbing down for his backpack where he takes out the lunches he made.

The girl scuttles a step back, and while he has no ill intentions whatsoever, he can't hold her distrust of him against her- he understands her wariness of him; she shouldn't trust anyone that crosses her path. Not for a long time.

"I'll just leave it here."

He drops his backpack down again, leaving the food on top, and settles on the couch with volume 4 of the Elemental Encyclopedia, which covered creatures that preferred ice and winter as a natural habitat. If he doesn't find an answer to his questions in here he won't know what else to do- going to see Dr Wells in the city would be a last resort.

From the corner of his eye he can make out the girl reaching down for some food, hurriedly eating it up. Good. She needs to eat to gain strength too.

"Let's see."

He opens the cover of the book, the title page thick quality paper, golden lettering spelling out the title and author. Would Dr Wells remember him at all? It's been fourteen years since Dr Wells called him a 'youthful spirit' and told him that his childhood was something he needed to cherish.

All of this is bringing back so many memories he thought forsaken to the test of time- his mom's loss still hurts every moment of every day even without remembering her smile and kind eyes. What he feels now rivals the acute pain he'd first felt after losing her.

So is all this even worth it? Why's he trying so hard to emulate his mom knowing it'll bring him more heartache?

Soft footfalls follow as an answer to his rampant thoughts, slow and steady footsteps cushioned by dust.

Barry stares across the room, the girl feeling her fingertips along the walls of the living room, over the windowsills, like she's trying to read everything like Braille.

That's right.

He's doing this for her.

The girl's features are distinctive, but would they be distinctive enough to identify which species she is? If she's anything like Iris he might need more than one book to cross-reference other creatures.

One step at a time.

Opening the book to the table of contents he makes out a slew of categories he hadn't even considered yet. Forget about full- or half-breeds; there were creatures that lived and died in non-human form, like spirit guides or hellhounds; there were those who looked human all the time, like his mom, but were endowed with magical powers; and there were those whose magic couldn't be seen by mortals.

He has so much to learn.

The book dedicates separate categories to shapeshifters who take on animal form, and those whose skins changed but not their overall physiognomy. How can he know which section to focus on? Maybe the girl isn't a shapeshifter at all, but a pureblood- maybe this is what she looks like all the time.

It's probably best he starts at the beginning and looks at each creature description. Surely the girl will be able to help him along.

The first section of the book lists all the creatures alphabetically, and gives a short description of their physical features- then reference pages are added for those who want a more detailed background description.

This might take some doing, but he's encouraged to find answers. He turns the page, and starts reading about something called an Akhlut.

 _When on land, an Akhlut is an orca spirit that takes the form of a gigantic wolf or a wolf-orca hybrid. It is a vicious and dangerous beast that ventures out of the water to hunt humans and other animals. Often they can be found waiting under the water for prey to come by_.

No. That can't be it. He'd seen the girl in and out of the water, and save from the cold healing her it hadn't changed her appearance. Besides, she ate regular food.

"An Amarok," he reads aloud, eyes drawn to specific words in the short description, "a gigantic gray wolf said to stalk and devour any person foolish enough to hunt alone at night. Unlike real wolves that prefer to hunt in packs, Amaroks hunt alone.

"They are said to be able to remove souls from the living.

"Jesus," he hushes, and looks back at the wandering girl exploring the room, rising and falling on the tips of her toes, playful not unlike a kitten.

"Can you shapeshift into a wolf?" he asks.

"No," comes the girl's matter-of-fact reply.

Barry smiles, and moves on to the next creature description. "Barbegazi. A variety of dwarf or gnome, they are small of stature, have white hair, and enormous feet."

This, surprisingly, earns him a giggle. He looks up and catches the girl's smile, curled amusedly around her blue lips, and it has to be the most wonderful thing he's ever witnessed- after all the heartache and pain, she somehow still manages to find some humor.

He should try and make her smile more often. It won't be enough to make her forget, but maybe it'll help her get her mind off things from time to time.

"An Ijiraq," he continues, "is a sort of shapeshifter who kidnaps children and hides them away before abandoning them."

Memories of the day before come back to him vividly, of the girl chained up in the attic, left abandoned to the elements- but that was done to her by a Hunter, not something she did to anyone else. Does he know that for certain? For all he knows this helpless girl is using him to get what she wants until she's regained her strength.

 _An Ijiraq can appear in any form it chooses, making it particularly deceptive. They are said to inhabit a place between two worlds; not quite inside this one but not quite outside of it either. When you are hunting somewhere that Ijirait inhabit, they can be seen in the corner of the eye for a fleeting moment. If anyone tries to observe them directly however, they are completely elusive._

 _The home of the Ijiraq is said to be cursed, and one will lose their way, no matter how skilled or familiar with the land._

His mom would say every creature, however big or small, good or bad, deserved care, and he's held true to that for the past fourteen years. That's not about to change because a description in a book scares him. He was led here and shown the way and sensed no danger whatsoever. Would the woodland spirits in the forest have helped him find her if she meant him any harm?

 _... Jötunn .._

—echoes through the room.

He frowns, his eyes falling to the same word starting the next paragraph.

 ** _Jötunn._**

 _The Jötnar, or Frost Giants, were once believed to be a mythological race of influencers of the natural world. Often cold to the touch, they draw strength from ice and cold climates._

Influencers of the natural world.

Glancing out the window he's reminded of the past few weeks, of the unnatural heat that's lingered for far too long, as if trapped in each house, each dwelling. Chained to the rafters. And then there's the remarkable way she'd healed once he brought her ice.

Could his new friend be Jötunn?

 _Some of the Jötnar are attributed hideous appearances, like claws and fangs, deformed features and a generally hideous size, yet when Jötnar are more closely described they are often given opposite characteristics. Many of them are described as beautiful, with delicate features, pale skin and white hair_.

He flips forward to the main reference page, where old drawings of the Jötnar show such beautiful creatures in their truest form; bodies marked with lines as if a map overlay their skins, tall and majestic beings who reigned over winter.

A cold wraps around his neck as the girl breathes right next to him; he startles a few inches to his right. God, she's quiet; he hadn't even heard her move.

She reaches over a hand, her eyes wide when she touches the picture of the Frost Giants reverently. Had he found his answer? Is she Jötunn? She's obviously not a pureblood; her skin's flawless and she's shorter than him, but this is a step in the right direction.

"Caitlin," the girl whispers.

"Caitlin?"

He turns to face the girl, whose eyes remain pinned to the picture in the book- her name's Caitlin? Caitlin who? Who is she and where did she come from?

White eyes catch in his, and the girl studies his face again, as if attempting to compare it to hers. In all the ways that matter they are the same; their minds and hearts, five fingers on each hand, but no one would claim that looking at them; their skins don't match and neither do their eyes, not their hair, or the way they talk.

She touches two fingers to his lips again. "Barry."

"Yes, I'm Barry." He nods. "And you're Caitlin?"

The girl touches fingertips to her own lips. "Caitlin."

"Caitlin," he breathes out the name and lets it settle between them, and it colors in a little of who she is- no longer a defenseless creature, but a girl with a name, one she has to reclaim and hold and make her own again. He wants to help her do that so badly.

"How did you get here?" he asks.

At the sound of those words, Caitlin shies away- her gaze drops and the same sadness he'd seen yesterday sinks into her features. He shouldn't push this too hard or too fast, but wouldn't she be better off with her family? With her own kind? In an environment that doesn't serve as a constant reminder of what happened to her? Staying in this house isn't the answer either.

Caitlin tracks a few steps back, pulling her hands deep into the sleeves of her sweater.

"I know this is hard, Caitlin, but _think_ ," he says. "You must have a home. Parents? Friends?"

Somewhere he can take her back to.

But Caitlin shakes her head, and tears fill up her eyes. "Hunter," she chokes out, and an icy chill runs down his spine.

How much does she remember?

"I'm sorry," falls from his lips so fast it must've been there since yesterday, since he first laid eyes on her, since he found out what must've happened to her in that damned room upstairs, and he stands up in one fluid move with his anger over it- if he could he'd wrap his arms around Caitlin and hold her until the shock wore off, until all of her was healed.

But he holds no right over her body like that. No one does.

"I'm so sorry that happened to you."

Caitlin's voice breaks. "Bad."

"Yeah," he breathes, tears coming to his own eyes, "it was bad."

He watches Caitlin retreat further still, her eyes never leaving his face, not once, until she rounds the corner and disappears out of sight, back upstairs.

Defeated, he releases a breath. What's he supposed to do? How can he find her home when he knows nothing about her? She can't stay here indefinitely- he can give her time and he can give her space but she can't wallow in her pain. That kind of thing destroys people, makes them cold and unresponsive, unfeeling towards others.

Maybe going to see Dr Wells wouldn't be such a bad idea. He'd know what to do.

He regards the book open in his lap, and means to read up on Frost Giants, but his eyes catch on the white bag inside his backpack. Mr. Hunter's pills.

Closing the heavy volume he quickly runs upstairs, halting right outside the bathroom- the door's ajar but he hears water splashing so he's not going to risk of catching her naked in the bathtub.

"Caitlin," he calls softly. "I have to go out- for a while."

 _... stay .._

The splashing inside the bathroom stops.

"I won't be long, I promise," he says, a hand braced against the wall he's tempted to scratch at. He can't say why he's so antsy all of a sudden, about to jump out of his skin. It's so easy to forget himself in here, forget his own tragedy while trying to fix someone else's- he's not sure whether that's a healthy way of dealing or not. "I need to do something for my dad. Deliver some- stuff to someone who lives out here."

Thunder rumbles somewhere in the far distance, echoing in all four chambers of his heart. His skin crawls, and the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end.

"Okay," follows Caitlin's voice.

He nods, for his benefit alone. Okay.

He should hurry before the storm reaches them.

Backing away a few steps he looks at the bathroom door, and run his tongue along his teeth. What more can he say? What more can he do to help her? Should he involve his dad after all? Dr Wells? Joe West, a memory of a life long gone?

No, he won't be long.

He grabs his backpack and zips up his hoodie, pulling the red hood over his head to shield himself against the wind, which has picked up more speed with the storm on its way.

Lightning flashes through the sky- he should know better than to be out in the woods during an imminent lightning storm, but what about Caitlin? He can't chuck his commitments and he can't leave her all alone, left to her own devices in a strange house.

He hurries back to the unpaved path, where he takes a right, and heads deeper into the forest than he's ever been; at least this time there's a clear road for him to take so he won't get lost. Clouds amass over the forest ceiling, darkening a view that'd already been hindered by the close vegetation- he peers through the gloom, the woods taking on a much more ominous glow. The air turns green and wet, and the first soft tap of rain starts through the foliage.

A flash of lightning flashes through the sky, like that mean claw in his childhood memory.

 _One_.

 _Two_.

 _Three_.

Thunder follows.

The storm is less than a mile away, and steadily creeping closer.

It takes him another ten minutes before he reaches a quaint little cottage, not unlike the bungalow he lives in with his dad, lined with straight trimmed hedges, and a small paved path leading up to the front door.

He knocks at the door hard, so that he'll be heard over the sound of the storm.

He waits, and waits, but the door doesn't open.

"Mr. Hunter!" he calls, and bangs his fist against the door- a man of Zacharia's age wouldn't be out in this weather. His dad made it seem like he never went out much at all, so he should be home. Would he be sleeping?

"I brought your medicine," he calls again when there's no answer. "Mr. Hunter?"

 _.. Barry! ..._

He jumps at the voices riding on the waves of the thunder, and whirls around, even though he knows not to expect someone there; the air itself shakes and roars, as if it's angry with him for leaving Caitlin behind. What the hell is going on?

"What?" he asks the mossy air. "What's wrong?"

 _... Caitlin .._

"Caitlin?"

He's barely been gone for twenty minutes. Had he miscalculated? Was she afraid or panicking all alone with the wind howling like wolves around the house?

Barry leaves Mr. Hunter's pills in the mailbox and breaks out in a sprint, barely seeing a foot out in front of him with the wind lashing at him like a whip, rain soaking into his clothes trying to drag him down to the ground with its weight- but he pushes through; he has to get back to the house, he has to make sure Caitlin's safe, and he has to keep her that way. What kind of person would he be leaving not only the house exposed to the elements like this, but her too?

His lungs have all but frozen by the time he reaches the house, his chest painful from his collarbone down to the lowest rib, and his throat raw from breathing in an out such foul weather. But what he finds chills him deeper still.

The front door is open.

His heart rate spiking he runs inside and shouts, "Caitlin!" as loud as his body will allow, but all the sounds he hears are the windows shaking in their frames, a door squeaking in its hinges, and the clatter of rain assaulting the rooftop. Had she hid back in the attic? Was she hiding in one of the other rooms?

He hurries up the stairs, but finds the bathroom empty, the floor showing wet footprints that lead—

Oh no.

Not that room.

He turns the doorknob and falls inside the room he hoped she'd never go near, and his legs disappear from under him. He hits the floor hard with his left hip- Barry cries out in pain and curls in on himself as a white-hot heat radiates up and down his leg, more cold still clawing through his pants.

"What the-"

That's when he takes in the room.

Caitlin isn't here, but every flat surface, every corner, every implement has frozen under a sheet of ice. The gurney's shattered into a million pieces as if it'd been dipped in liquid nitrogen and hit hard, the metal made brittle because of the cold. Did Caitlin do this? Did she have that kind of power? Where did she find the strength in that small frail body of hers?

This was done in a blind rage.

He shouldn't have left the room the way he had; he should've locked the door or dismantled everything inside so she could never find it. The thought of Caitlin strapped to that gurney, conscious or unconscious sets off a similar fiery rage inside him- no matter how he turned it over in his head the Dark did this to her, a demon, something so evil it could hardly be called a man anymore; a demon that'd taken her from her home and her family and subjected her to torture.

"Where is she?" he asks, standing up with some difficulty.

 _.. gone ..._

Gone? That can't be. Where would she go? Had she gone out to find him?

Frantically he searches the other rooms of the house, limping up to the attic and down to the living room; he checks the kitchen and the pantry, but each of them is empty- Caitlin's out there in the forest, out in this storm on her own, all alone. He should never have left her. What was he thinking?

He runs out onto the porch. "Where is she?!" he screams out to the forest but for once, there's no reply. His words meet with a dead silence, undercut by the harsh slash of the wind and rain, but no voices trailing behind.

What does he do now?

How will he ever find her in this weather?

What he wouldn't give for some of his mom's magic protecting Caitlin right now. He can't leave her out there on her own, not when she can easily wander into town; she could scare someone or someone might scare her; someone could get hurt. Fear can drive people to do senseless things.

So against all instinct and survival skills he'd been taught, he runs into the woods, in search of a scared girl who probably doesn't even know where she is- would the forest guide her like it had him? Would Caitlin heed its calls?

"Caitlin!" he screams at the top of his lungs, searching all around the house first- if he hoped to find evidence of her footprints in the dirt the wind and rain surely washed them away, so he can't even tell which way she went. It's cold enough out here for her in any case, but would she be able to withstand lightning? Only fools venture out in the woods during lightning storms, especially around here; the lightning's been known to burn trees down to their roots, so he can't imagine what it would do to either of them.

But he can't leave her out here with no clue of where she is, or where she's going, or how she might return. The voices have gone, the woodland spirits retreated to wherever it is they reside, safe places to hide from Raiju's and Raijin's agitation- they won't be any more help to him, and he fears they won't be helping out Caitlin either.

"Caitlin!" he yells, his voice breaking, his throat sore from the wind and the cold, and he's shivering and sweating at the same time. He'll catch his death out here if he's not careful, but he can't run the risk of Caitlin meeting hers. Not after all she's already been through. She's his responsibility now.

He fights through shrubs back to the path, the torrent now so violent the trees provide no shelter, and he can't see an inch ahead.

He calls Caitlin's name over and over, hoping for a response, something, anything to give him some kind of idea of where she might be, but there's no sound but the wind and the rain, no voices through the storm, no footsteps in the mud but his own. He's soaked from head to toe and he folds his arms around his own chest, holding on to the last of his body heat- but he'll freeze to death if he stays out here much longer.

Where could she be? Why would she leave? Had seeing the room been too much? Had she finally realized she'd been recovering in the same house she'd been locked inside for God knows how long?

Or had she simply attempted to find him?

Barry searches for what seems like hours, to and from the house, circling back in the hopes that Caitlin might have found her way back, but to no avail. The only thing that's remotely comforting is his knowledge that cold makes her stronger, that she's not suffering like he is. He hopes he's right about that, at least.

He pushes so deep into the woods he loses all sense of direction, and at a certain point, without knowing which way's North or South, his knees near give out. His face has gone numb, as have his fingers and toes, and he walks aimlessly, unable to so much as call out.

Blurry colored flashes in the distance paint his vision red and blue, but it's so faint he wonders if it isn't the light playing tricks on him. Everything is dark and gray and gloomy, yet the flashes remain constant.

What's out there?

Barry makes for the lights in a straight line, and they become more defined the closer he gets. Red and blue. Flashing. A car?

And then a siren sounds.

Oh no.

" _Caitlin_ ," he whispers, stumbling forward, and finds himself back at Zacharia Hunter's cottage.

Stumbling closer he makes out a police car and an ambulance, a few people standing around, other running inside the house, and—

"Dad?"

Henry Allen looks up at the sound of Barry's voice, concern setting around his eyes at the sight of him. "Barry? What are you doing all the way out here?"

His dad meets him halfway, a stethoscope around his neck, and pulls him inside the ambulance, finally giving him some reprieve from the rain. "Look at you, you're shaking," his dad's voice sounds faintly, while all he can see is paramedics wheeling a gurney out of the cottage, a body on top of it, zipped up in a black body bag.

A breath catches at the back of his throat.

"What happened?" he chokes out, unable to think straight anymore- he's dead? Zacharia's dead? Is that why he hadn't answered the door?

"Is he-"

"He's gone, son," his dad says.

No.

"N-no." His eyes fill with tears. "I just saw him, he-"

But he hadn't, had he? He'd neglected checking on Zacharia yesterday because magic led him astray, because it tempted him off the path and towards Caitlin, to a defenseless creature locked up in the attic. Was that true? Had she been defenseless?

He thinks back on the trashed room he'd found, burning with ice, and- no, none of this made any sense. Zacharia was an old and sick man, but what if he'd been able to save him? Had it been a choice? Stay on the path and save Zacharia, or stray from it and save Caitlin?

Nothing makes sense anymore.

"Come on." His dad cups his cheek. "We're going home. We have to get you out of these clothes."

Led by his dad's hand, he follows behind on autopilot, not hearing, not seeing, not feeling much of anything. Was he responsible for Mr. Hunter's death? Or had this happened within the last few hours?

"What were you thinking being out here?" his dad asks, rubbing at his shoulders, but not enough to keep hypothermia at bay. He thought he knew what he was doing out here just this morning, looking after a scared girl who'd in so many ways already wound her tendrils around his heart.

Had he been seduced by the Dark?

A blanket is thrown over his shoulders, and his dad guides him into the passenger seat of a car- muffled voices follow, probably his dad saying goodbye to whoever else was on the scene.

Another flash of lightning cuts through the sky, and as the forest illuminates, as thunder roars like a thousand lions all at once, he catches sight of two white piercing eyes looking straight at him-

Caitlin.

Her eyes seem like they're glowing, two lights in the dark, but what if they're not? What if he's like that boy who lived many thousands of years ago, wandered too far from his tribe, and the Dark called to him?

The Light can't exist without the Dark but that goes both ways. What if the Dark needed him? What if he'd been the only one to hear its call?

Who or what had he let loose?

.

.

 **tbc**

.


	3. Chapter 3

.

 **& LOVE HER ANYWAY**

part three

.

.

No sleep comes to him that night.

None.

Not memories of a childhood he often wishes he could return to, no veiled messages sent to him in the guise of a dream. As soon as they made it home his dad got him out of his wet clothes and into a hot shower, and every hour after that Barry spent shivering beneath the sheets, despite the long PJ bottoms and hoodie he decided to wear to bed.

He took some aspirin for the pain in his hip and to keep a fever at bay, but it's to no avail- he's hot and cold, sweating one moment and freezing the next, his every thought occupied by Caitlin and what happened during the storm.

Why had she left the house? He wasn't gone that long and he promised he'd be back- and he'd had every intention of keeping that promise. Had she not trusted him to come back? Or did she have plans once he left Zacharia's- plans to hurt the old man because it was in her nature to do so? She'd made him believe she was Jötunn, but could he trust that? Could he trust anything she said?

What if Caitlin's a demon?

What if he hadn't heeded his gut instinct and unwittingly released something that would rain death and destruction on this magic-less home of his?

He's never wished for his mom to be here more- she'd know what to say to soothe his concerns and give him advice about where to go from here. "Follow your heart, my beautiful boy," she would say, though he's not sure that's meant to be trusted.

Because what does he do now?

He can't trust anything anymore. Maybe he's wrong and Caitlin had nothing to do with Zacharia's death, or his fears were founded and he made a terrible mistake.

Failing to catch any sleep, Barry pulls volume 4 of the Elemental Encyclopedia in bed with him, and reads up on the Jötnar- maybe if he learned more about them as a species he'll find a better understanding of Caitlin.

 _In Norse Mythology, the Frost Giants of old are a tribe of spiritual beings whose power equals that of the two tribes of gods, the Aesir and the Vanir. Their character, however, is very different from that of the gods– and, in fact, the giants and gods correspond to opposing, but intertwined, cosmological principles._

Opposing principles. Opposing the gods?

Barry frowns, and sits up, curling around the heavy book as he reads over every sentence his eyes encounter twice. His history books had included enough on Roman and Greek mythology for him to theorize Norse Mythology probably included many different gods, all of them representing a variety of morals and values- but Frost Giants weren't gods. Were they anything like the Titans in Greek myths?

 _'Giants' is a misleading Anglicization of the name of these beings. In modern English, of course, a 'giant' is first and foremost something of enormous size, but the words is rather a ludicrous designation for beings who were genuinely dreaded in heathen times._

Dreaded, Barry thinks- Why were they so dreaded?

 _Speakers of Old Norse called them **Jötnar** (singular, **Jötunn** , pronounced roughly 'yo-tun'), which comes from the Proto-Germanic *etunaz and means 'devourer', with secondary connotations implying creatures of great power and injurious appetites. _

Appetites?

 _Jötunn had the original meaning of 'glutton' or 'man-eater.'_

Tears fill up Barry's eyes. That can't be Caitlin- that's not at all what he found in that attic or who he saw the first time he looked into her eyes. Those were beautiful snow-white eyes; a little dangerous perhaps, but he's not once gotten the sense that he's in danger around her. If she were a glutton, this man-eater like the book claims, wouldn't he have been her first victim after being deprived for so long?

Or maybe the terrible truth of the matter is Caitlin realized she needed him- needed his help reaching her full strength again, and her first true victim fell last night.

Zacharia Hunter.

Could that be true? Could he have been that wrong?

An icy hand claws around his heart and squeezes, and he can't decide if the chest pains that follow are a result of his shivering and shaking, or his heartfelt desire to still see the good in Caitlin. Because that lovely girl who'd risen and fallen on her toes exploring the living room, stroking fingers along the wallpaper and windowsills- that can't possibly have been a demon. Demons were sly and cunning like foxes, they snuck in when you weren't looking, and—

A breath hitches in his throat.

Maybe that's exactly how she'd managed to pull the wool over his eyes. Caitlin acted nothing like a demon, but played with his need to help, to heal, to safeguard those who couldn't protect themselves. He hasn't felt that kind of purpose in years, not since his mom passed away. Had Caitlin successfully preyed on that? Where would she have found the strength? It can't have all been a ploy- the attic, the chains, the heat stroke- it all seemed too detailed for it all to have been fabricated.

Lost and confused, Barry continues to read.

 _One of the fundamental concepts that underlie Norse mythology is that the Aesir are the benefactors and protectors of civilization, while the Devourers are constantly trying to drag it back to primordial chaos. They are forces of destruction, entropy, and decay._

 _This shouldn't, however, be taken to mean that the Devourers were thought of as being 'evil,' even if they were, without a doubt, feared. For one, old polytheistic religions had no need for the moral binary between 'good' and 'evil' that burdens monotheistic religions._

Barry's confusion increases the more he reads, his heart pounding at his ribcage like a confined animal.

As a whole, magic seemed a lot like these old mythological hierarchies- there was light and dark magic, but each individual made their own decisions. Being a werewolf didn't mean being inherently dark, nor was all of Elven kind inherently good, or did each Valkyrie pick fights with those around them.

The Dark, a big frightening but ultimately undefined entity, threatened both light and dark magic, as well as the human world; it could infect humans and turn them into demons, could cancel out the Light in magic kind, and to him seemed like the only true evil.

Caitlin couldn't be a demon- but she could've still harmed Zacharia. Just because she's not a demon, didn't mean she wasn't capable of terrible things.

His eyes fall to the closing paragraph.

 _The Devourers have a necessary and ultimately positive role to play in the universe and its cyclical destiny. Paradoxically, these forces of entropy are also the forces that ultimately guarantee the survival of the universe._

Barry rubs at his eyes. He can't make heads or tails of this anymore, and he's not sure he's supposed to- he has no experience taking care of anyone, what business does he have trying to help Caitlin? And what right does he have to judge her?

This whole situation reminds him of what his mom used to say about nature, how it never judged, made no distinction between good and evil, and welcomed winter each year, even though some might claim otherwise. Farmers needed the cold, for snow to cover their fields so that come spring the fields will be properly irrigated.

And a deep winter freeze killed harmful insects and diseases.

Caitlin wasn't evil.

She had evil done to her.

"Barry?" His dad's voice sounds in the hallway, followed by a brief knock on his bedroom door. "Are you up?"

As quick as he can Barry shuffles the book underneath his bed covers- he doesn't want his dad to start asking questions he doesn't want to answer. He's still undecided about whether or not he should tell his dad about Caitlin's possible involvement in Mr. Hunter's death. If she's involved at all.

"Yeah, dad," he calls, and pushes his hood back, shivers ravaging his body.

"Feeling any better?" His dad comes in, holding a mug of something that smells suspiciously like the tea his mom used to make.

"Not really."

Even if he were physically fine, there's plenty on his mind to make him sick to his stomach. This shouldn't be his decision; this shouldn't be anyone's decision- Caitlin should be free to do what she wants, but if she has anything to do with Mr. Hunter's death isn't it his duty to report her? Can he let her roam free?

"This'll help," his dad says, and hands him the mug, steam rising along the rim.

Barry takes a careful sip, his throat immediately soothed by a mix of herbs he hasn't tasted since—

"You remembered," he breathes, blinking up at his dad as if it's the first time he's ever seen him. He hasn't tasted this tea since he was nine years old- he never even realized his dad knew the recipe.

"Are you kidding?" His dad grins. "This is the only thing that kept you alive when you were sick as a boy."

And Barry, too, smiles at the onslaught of memories, but touches around them carefully nonetheless; he rarely got sick as a kid, but when he did his dad fussed over him like he were dying, constantly checking his airways and temperature, making sure he drank enough fluids, hovering like a humming bird. His mom never took on such an extreme affect because her method of healing never failed. One strong tea strengthened by her secret ingredient.

"You always called me your worst patient."

"That's because you knew your mom could fix you up in no time."

Barry drinks his tea and breathes more freely around every sip, each warming him up from the inside, pushing out any hint of illness, opening up his lungs and nose to the scent of cinnamon and mint, and the secret ingredient he thought lost with his mom. When he was a boy his dad liked to joke his mom added love, pure and simple, and that's what healed him- he still likes to believe that.

"Thanks, dad," he says softly, falling back against the pillows.

He can't for the life of him imagine why he ever thinks he can't talk to his dad. At the end of the day, they can't talk about things he never brings up in the first place, so the fault is his own as much as his dad's- neither of them are great communicators, especially not when it comes to expressing their feelings. But when the going gets rough, and he gets lost in the woods, he can count on his dad to guide him home.

An hour later Barry's showered and dressed and had breakfast- he packs another lunch and leaves the house with the excuse that he lost his phone in the woods, and retraces his footsteps through the forest, all the while coming up with a clear game plan. He can't afford no longer knowing where Caitlin is at any given time, especially if she's a danger to other people.

As far as he's aware, there's only one way he can do that without staying by her side 24/7.

And the thought sickens him all over again.

The storm left few things in the woods untouched. There are loose branches littered all over the forest floor, the air smells wet yet fresh, and all the leaves dripping with the water they'd soaked up yesterday makes it sound like it's still raining. Barry's careful where he steps so he doesn't slip, and takes twice as long to come to the house as he had the days before.

But he veers off the trail on automatic, shrubs parting for him before he comes to the clearing. It's a dreary sort of day, one he'd usually spend indoors, the sun hiding behind a coverage of clouds, a cold nip in the air that makes him crave more tea.

Outside, he halts.

 _... Barry .._

He draws in a deep shuddery breath, gathering courage for what he's about to do. He'll ask Caitlin what happened first, he'll get the truth before he tries anything, but—

Will Caitlin ever forgive him?

Will he ever forgive himself?

Without a second thought he lets go of his apprehension and heads inside the house, where a dead quiet has invaded its foundations. No sunlight reaches inside, casting deep and dark shadows into every room- the house has cooled down to a sustained but uncomfortable degree.

He doesn't hear Caitlin anywhere. Would she have come back?

First things first; Barry collects what he needs upstairs, in the room he thought he'd never set foot in again, a room freezing like his heart.

On the floor just inside the door, lies the second set of chains, though this one has plastic covering- they won't even make a sound.

Pocketing the short set of chains in his sweatshirt, the key in his back pocket, he thinks, not for the first time, that this is the most terrible thing he'll ever do to any living thing.

Sadly, he sees no other way.

If Caitlin hurt Mr. Hunter, if she's somehow responsible for his death, action needs to be taken.

No voices follow that sound their advice or their disgust with him. What does it all mean? Woodland spirits tried so hard to guide him here- why wouldn't they be trying to protect Caitlin?

"Caitlin?" he calls tentatively, his throat slowly but surely closing.

Was there another way? A better one? Should he report her to the appropriate authorities and have her forcibly removed so she can sit in another prison? Would that be better than the one he's about to create?

"Caitlin!" he shouts, coming to the bottom of the stairs again.

A door screeches in the space between the stairwell and the dining room wall, the light revealing a small and frail-looking girl, delicate in the way she moves and holds herself. She's wearing a sweater and pants now, all droopy and too big on her.

His little wolf in sheep's clothing.

"Barry," she whispers, and tears fill up his eyes- what's he thinking trying to contain this beauty? It'll be like tying down Mother Nature herself.

"Where were you yesterday?" he asks, voice shaking, eyesight blurring around the reality of it all. "I came looking for you, but you weren't here."

Caitlin tilts her head.

"Caitlin, did you follow me?"

Eyes wide in shock, Caitlin nods.

"How could you do that?" Barry cries. "I came here to help you. I set you free, and you repay me by going out to kill someone?"

"Accident," Caitlin says sheepishly.

"He was an innocent old man." He shakes his head, too wrapped up in his own grief to truly register Caitlin's reply- she was there, in the forest, during the storm, and she knows exactly what he's talking about. What has he done? He saw what he wanted to see when he found her; he wanted to be the hero, the healer, like his mom meant for him to become, but he's responsible for— "And now he's dead."

Caitlin wobbles on her feet, uncertain, scared maybe as her eyes scour his face- what does she keep looking for? Does she mean to read him like an open book? Did she read him the moment he set foot in this house?

" _Nature_ ," she supplies, her lips curling, eyes feral and angry.

"No." Barry points at Caitlin. "It's not in anyone's nature to kill. That's a lie."

That's the Dark, that's these Hunters who call themselves men but prey on the weak and docile to get what they want, that's this monster that touched Caitlin's life and turned her against the world.

"Who did this to you?" he asks. He has to know; there has to be a way to make sense of this. "Who chained you up and left you here _to die_?"

Startled, Caitlin trips a step back. "Hunter," she hushes, lips trembling, eyes caught in a maze of fear with paths leading to places he couldn't follow even in his nightmares. "Bad."

Barry chances a step closer.

"You don't have to be bad," he says softly. "That's just what someone told you. What someone else made you believe."

Can't she see? She's free now. Free to go wherever she wants, to do whatever she wants; she must have a family or friends, someone who misses her. She doesn't have to be what this Hunter saw in her, what he may have even feared in her.

He's undoubtedly making that same mistake.

"Barry," Caitlin whispers, the corners of her mouth drawing down, and she comes a few steps closer.

Carefully, she touches a hand over his heart.

It breaks instantly beneath her touch.

One of his hands tightens around the cuff in his pocket.

"Barry, good," Caitlin says, and comes closer still, her cold touch sinking through the fabric of his clothing. There's more to her than he's thus far given her credit for; yesterday her movements had come hesitant, distrusting, calm, like she knew to be docile until he turned his back. More like a fox, than a wolf.

Barry draws in a breath, and whispers, "I'm so sorry," before he lets a cuff slip around Caitlin's wrist.

Caitlin gasps and reels back, but he holds on tight, pulling long enough to secure the other cuff around one of the stair spindles.

Then, he releases her and staggers a few steps back.

"No!" Caitlin screeches and tugs at the chains with all her might, swinging her other hand out to try and scratch him, crying like a wild animal.

"Barry!" she screams, and the steps he hoped to take towards the door don't come- he freezes on the spot, stopped by a painful tug at his heart, as if Caitlin threw a lasso around it when he wasn't paying attention.

He turns, vision blurring around tears he hasn't managed to cry yet, watching Caitlin try to burn her way through the chains- the plastic covers in a sheen of ice, but it burns nowhere cold enough to break the plastic or the steel beneath it. She's not strong enough for that.

No voices come, nothing reminiscent of judgment but his own conscience, which beats down on him with the strength of the ages. Caitlin kicks and screams, and tears at the stair spindles, and he sinks down to the floor, hands in his hair, giving his tears free reign. How can he be the one who feels helpless? How can he feel trapped and alone, and cold inside?

Barry sobs and gasps for air, and as he sits crying, the whole house envelops with plants- ivy, periwinkle, and honeysuckle cover every window and crack, close off every exit and bathe the house in full darkness, trapping him and Caitlin together. He curls into himself, hoping to contain the pain in his chest, but all it serves is provide a smaller space to pour his grief into, quickly filling with the reality of what he has become.

A monster, all the same.

Had he become the very thing that killed his mom?

 _.. shhh ..._

Had he stared into the Dark too long and let it in?

He hears Caitlin's chains thumping against the wood of the staircase, her breathing fast, and her fingernails dragging along the floorboards.

"Scared," comes a small voice that's barely recognizable.

Oh, he made a mistake. Such a horrible mistake. "I'm- sorry," he chokes out, and whimpers. "I don't know- I don't know how to help you, Caitlin. I don't-"

He's not better than the monster that brought her here.

 _... Wells .._

A sob catches at the back of his throat. "What?"

 _.. Harrison ..._

 _... Wells .._

 _.. go to him ..._

The words have no sooner reached his ears or cracks of light start to show around the door, the quiet rustle of retreating evergreen like a soft breeze.

Barry blinks a few times.

He thought for sure he ruined any chances of getting help from whatever spirits had guided him here. Surely they're on Caitlin's side, not his. Or were they as confused about what happened as he was?

Staggering upright Barry opens the door, the open doorway casting a light over Caitlin, who sits staring at her own hands. She's right to. He doesn't deserve to be looked at right now.

 _... go .._

—the voices sound, but he's still frozen in place; he had every intention of leaving her like this come nightfall, hoping that a better solution would soon present itself, but he now finds he doesn't have the strength. What made him think he did? He's never thought of himself as cruel or uncaring, but that's exactly what he set out to do, put Caitlin through more horrors still to protect others like Zacharia.

But how can he leave her? He could take her with him- Dr Wells would know exactly what to do, and how to talk to her, and give her a place to stay that isn't this damp house of horrors. He could go get his dad's car, drive here, and then it's a matter of getting her into the car.

If she doesn't kill him for doing this to her first.

"Caitlin-"

" _Leave_ ," she hisses, and faces away from him, away from the light, from the fresh air, from a freedom rightfully hers.

"I can take you to see Dr Wells." He kneels by her side. "He can keep you safe."

Caitlin curls into a small ball. "Belong here."

His heart breaks all over again.

It's not her chains that keep her here.

"I'm sorry," he breathes, and closes his eyes, trying to imagine a world where this never happened to her- he wonders what that girl would look like, loved and unscathed, smiling. Free. What would freedom look like on her? He imagines her with a smile, set subtly around the corners of her mouth, faltering at times, a little sad, but a smile nonetheless.

What he wouldn't give to undo all of this.

He leaves the lunch he made at Caitlin's feet, and leaves the house, forcing every single step until the pain in his hips returns- he makes himself travel forward, not backward. If he can get answers from Dr Wells he'll be able to help Caitlin; he has to remember that.

After some persuasion, a lie about needing a new phone, and assuring his dad that he's still fever-free, he takes his dad's car and drives to the city- it's a three-hour drive both ways, and the distance manages little more than knitting his anxiety straight into his skin. He hates leaving Caitlin, and he hates lying to his dad.

Even the city of his childhood fails to stifle his growing sense of self-loathing.

He'd like to say it's unchanged, that it's the same city that lives in his dreams and memories, but fourteen years changed a great many things. His house had been demolished, and next to the old West house now stood an impressive block of apartments, all of them lacking a garden; the baker on the corner became a clothing store, and the bookstore moved down the street.

Somehow, everything looked duller and gray, and many of the colors of his childhood had steadily seeped from the streetscape. He can't help but wonder if it would've kept its colors had his dad not moved them out to the countryside.

One of the few things all of magic kind could count on never changing, though, was Dr Wells' presence. All the stories he'd been told, by his mom, or Iris, or his old friends Cisco and Patty, painted Dr Wells as an immortal being, withstanding the test of time through reincarnation. Over the centuries he'd taken on many faces and many different forms, but he's only ever known him as a tall and imposing man, with crazy black hair, and thickly framed glasses. For now, at least, Dr Wells looked human.

His quest leads him to Main Street in the dead center of the city, to a heavy lead door, a house tucked in between two that –at least from the outside- look far more imposing. But he knows better.

He lifts the heavy lion door knocker, and lets gravity take hold of it.

A loud bang reverberates in the space behind the door, bringing to life the world that lies beyond it- wonders and mysteries, if he remembers correctly, and the answers to a lot of life's questions.

The door opens on its own, revealing Dr Wells, in a wheelchair. When did that happen?

"Do my eyes deceive me?" Dr Wells lifts his glasses off his nose, peers at him over the rim of them, and sets them back down. "Barry Allen, as I live and breathe."

"Dr Wells, what happened?"

"Time catches up to all of us, I'm afraid." Dr Wells smiles amicably. "I'm not as young as I used to be."

Yet the past fourteen years don't seem to have touched Dr Wells at all- he didn't appear changed in any other way but that chair, every bit the same as the last time he saw him. At his mother's funeral.

It hadn't been a typical funeral, like his dad's mom had gotten- there hadn't been a coffin, or a hole dug in the ground. Only his mom's body wrapped in vines laid out on the forest floor, the wind singing, and nature reclaiming one of its own. Dr Wells recited a poem, and a lot of his mom's patients shared anecdotes, and he cried silently in his dad's arms.

Nature had taken a piece of him too that day.

"Come in, come in." Dr Wells waves him inside, and the moment he does, the moment he crosses that threshold, he sets foot in another world.

From the outside the house may resemble a modest two-story townhouse, but the inside revealed bellowing depths and soaring heights, the likes of which one would expect in a mansion. Sunlight danced through tall traceried Gothic windows, and if not for the temperature and rich scent of incense he'd think he stepped into an old European church. Gleaming marble floors stretched beneath his feet and the walls are paneled in dark oaks, most of them mounted with bookshelves from top to bottom.

As a boy it'd felt like time travel, stepping into a world he'd seen on television or read about in books, the sense of somewhere else living in every room of his house.

"What brings you here, Mr. Allen?"

Pulled from a past he's been steadily drowning in for a while now, he follows Dr Wells into his study, where he sits down on a heavyset leather settee.

In that moment, he turns small, trapped beneath Dr Wells' soft and all-seeing gaze, and the weight of the past few days resting squarely on his shoulders. His story pours out of him like he's told it a million times before, with such ease he surprises himself- maybe this is why his mom came here too; because Dr Wells inspired this kind of outpouring.

Barry spares no details- he mentions the dreams he had of his mom and the voices that guided him through the forest, the cracks in the first floor window and what that room had turned out to be; each detail in Caitlin's complexion down to her bloody nails, her broken sentences and her unwillingness to talk about her past; and his growing suspicion she was far more cognitive than she let on. He describes the night of the storm and what he suspects happened to Zacharia, along with his research into Jötnar.

"-and I read in your book how they aren't necessarily forces of evil, but-"

"Let me stop you there, Mr. Allen," Dr Wells interrupts, putting up a hand. "These creatures, in my book, they're nothing more than myth."

"Isn't all myth grounded in some truth, though?"

"They existed at one time or other, but you shouldn't believe every word in there. Like humans, we have evolved as a species. In every way imaginable."

He can't disagree on any point in particular- he came here to talk to an expert so he should heed his advice. In all the legends of old, a Sphinx was a creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion, and for a second or two he tries to picture Dr Wells like that, or Caitlin as a giant with a devouring appetite. He fails miserably at both.

But if the Frost Giants aren't anything like described in Dr Wells' book, then what should he expect? How can he learn more about Caitlin? And what's the point of the Encyclopedia in the first place?

"Truth is," Dr Wells says, his eyes alight with his continuous quest for knowledge, "my books do little more than give you a small taste of the wealth of creatures that are out there. Even now, there are new creatures coming into existence. That's the beauty- of our world, Barry."

Dr Wells smiles. "Humans, and our kind, are evolving. Together."

"I'm human, Dr Wells."

"I don't see how you can be," Dr Wells regards him like he's a puzzle to solve, "with your mom's lineage."

Barry rubs the back of his neck, any retort trapped at the back his throat; he's wanted to have magic like his mom for as long as he can remember, and it does raise the question whether he'd be living in North Hollow, but that's not the fate life dealt him. It's not something he wishes to linger on right this instant.

Dr Wells waves a hand around the room, each wall in here covered with shelves too, filled with books and scrolls that are probably older than him. "I can spend lifetimes updating my collections and I'd never catch up."

"That's why people come to you."

Dr Wells nods, smiling. "And others, like me."

Long ago, his mom sat in this chair, asking Dr Wells for advice on her patients- it seems like another time in its own right since he was that young, since he felt that loved, since he had such few cares. He can't blame the Dark for all the changes in his life- he's pretty sure he has himself to blame for this most recent one. But who would he be, if not his mother's son, reaching out to those in need?

Who is he, if not something of a monster himself, imprisoning a young and fragile girl?

"Frost Giants," Dr Wells muses, "I know few people alive today who can say they've ever met a Jötunn. They're shapeshifters, that much I do know. They can appear human."

"Then why wouldn't she?"

"It's possible her Jötunn side heals faster."

"When she's cold." Barry nods. "But that attic was hell."

Dr Wells crosses his arms over his chest. "A defense mechanism, then."

Barry frowns. What use is Caitlin's Jötunn side if she can't use it to break free? She wasn't left strong enough for that.

"Maybe her transformation protected her human side, because it could withstand more." Dr Wells sits forward, touching the tips of his fingers together. "Either way," he says, "by the sound of it the deprivation she suffered brought out a savage part of her. Something in her genetic code. Archetypical, even."

Like a snail retreating back into its shell for protection- like any animal with a natural defense mechanism against predators or dehydration, or even the cold; or like humans, who, when deprived, return to certain affectations of their prehistoric past, savages fighting for their right to survive. Caitlin was stronger transformed, more resilient against the elements and perhaps her captor; it'd taken her speech and some of her cognitive skills, but her human side hid safely somewhere inside of her.

"Can she come back from it?" he asks tentatively, because this information is no good to him if he can't do anything with it. What if Caitlin's stuck like this, in that house, forever? It'll be like she died.

"Hard to tell," Dr Wells says. "How long was she up there?"

"I don't know."

Dr Wells' eyes narrow on his face.

And it hits him, not unlike lightning. It must have been around three weeks, right around the time his dreams started. Were they meant to prepare him for all this? Was that story, about the lost boy and the Light in the Dark, supposed to make him see that there's no clear-cut choice, no such thing as true good and true evil?

Even after all this, he means to help Caitlin. Help her find herself, find freedom, find some way out of that house that doesn't involve disrespecting what she went through.

"How can I help her?"

"The creature inside her has taken over," Dr Wells says. "You need to bring out her human side."

"How?"

He doesn't know a thing about her, or what her life before looked like. Could there be some way for him to find out without asking her? Should he go through missing persons' reports? How far back would he need to go?

Dr Wells' answer comes as simple as it is humbling.

"Find some way to connect."

Connect to a girl he's wronged worse than anyone.

"You are your mother's son, Barry," Dr Wells tells him on his way out, as if he reads his mind and greatest concerns. "You're kind, but not infallible. You'll find a way."

He's never known his mom to be fallible in any way, but he takes Dr Wells' words to heart- he already determined he'd help Caitlin and he will, even if he's beat back or discouraged, precisely because he's his mother's son. More than anything he wants to live up to his mom's dreams for him.

By the time he gets back home dusk has started to set, the sun disappearing behind the mountains, leaving the forest bathed in a supernatural orange glow, like the twilight holds a warning of things to come.

Barry enters the house and every bone in his body rattles- Caitlin sits where he left her, pressed up against the staircase, cradling her shackled wrist. Her eyes are focused somewhere on the wall opposite, her lips pressed together in a tight line.

Why did he think he'd get away with this?

It'd seemed like a sound idea this morning, but he'd been feverish, delirious, and terrified he'd set free a demon, especially after reading Dr Wells' book. This was never a decision he should've made on his own. He should've consulted Dr Wells first.

Barry kneels down next to Caitlin, prepared to suffer for his mistakes.

"I know you're upset with me," he says, unlocking the cuff around her wrist- Caitlin instantly shuffles a few inches back and grabs a hand around it, holding it close to her chest.

And there she remains, as if she's afraid to run again. Like he'd made some kind of point.

He hates that he made her afraid.

Defeated, but with Dr Wells' advice in mind, Barry settles against the staircase next to Caitlin, who promptly turns her back on him. He has to find some way to connect to Caitlin, and he's struck with the horrifying thought that the only thing they have in common at this point is they've both suffered losses. This monster that shut Caitlin away stripped her of who she is, and the Dark that killed his mom took part of his identity all the same.

Maybe he's forsaken magic too. Maybe he's become like his dad without realizing- all these years he hadn't been touched by magic until the woodland spirits started calling to him. He'd heard their call, but for fourteen years he'd lived free of magic, only reading about it in his mom's books, thinking about it, noticing it in the infinitesimal changes of the seasons. But he hasn't let it in. Not once.

How could he after what it did to his mom?

Barry reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, opening it up to a picture of him and his mom- he must've been six or seven, sitting on his mom's lap at the West Christmas party, smiling wide right after Joe West said 'say cheese.'

It was his mom's favorite picture of them.

"You know, my mom she-"

Barry draws in a deep breath, tears filling his eyes. "She had magic.

"I guess, in some way, she was kind of like you. She could- affect nature with the touch of her fingers.

"She used to tell me this story, about a young boy who lived thousands of years ago and got separated from his family. And he- got lost, and the Dark found him and- turned him into something else."

Maybe the past fourteen years turned him into something else too; separated from his mom and her teachings his views on magic had soured and darkened, and he didn't fully trust it to govern his world. He thought he treated it with respect, but this wouldn't be the first thing he's been wrong about.

"Demon," Caitlin says, and from the corner of his eyes he watches her turn, her white piercing gaze once again finding his face. She knows this story too.

He's unable to meet her eyes, so stays focused on the picture in his hands.

"When I was nine a demon came for my mom," he says, tears running down his cheeks- his heart burns like water boiling, and the wall he built around his happiest and most painful memories comes down. "She was so beautiful, and so kind, and the Dark just-"

His mom's death hardened him in ways he hadn't realized. He hasn't let magic in; he's merely been living in its presence.

Maybe he secretly hoped being Caitlin's knight in shining armor would make him his mom's brave boy again.

Caitlin gently touches a finger to the picture. "Mother."

Barry sniffles. "Yeah."

"Gone."

"Gone. Yeah."

Barry draws a hand down his face, trying to breathe around his heartburn, acutely catching fire again, and he tries to imagine what his life would be like with her still alive. He'd still be living in the city, his family safe and sound, and he'd be gearing up to start his postgrad degree. In his spare time his mom would homeschool him in her ways, teach him about all the plants and herbs that could be worked into remedies, about afflictions that struck only magic kind, and how to help. He'd still have Iris in his life getting him in more trouble than he could handle, with the Wests as a close second family.

That future was stolen from him, ripped out of existence by some greedy thing that couldn't help but take and take and take. Like the greedy thing that shut Caitlin away.

"Caitlin gone," sounds beside him, shaking him from his thoughts so violently his head hits the wall when he looks at Caitlin.

"Caitlin, no," he breathes, catching two fearful eyes he wouldn't mind never seeing again- there's nothing here she needs to be afraid of. Not anymore. "You're not gone."

With no thought but trying to convince her how she's right here, how she's alive and safe from harm, he reaches out a hand and cups her cheek, her skin wickedly cold to the touch. Strange how beautiful she is like this; pale and cold, with her deep blue lips and pinprick eyes- that's a gift his mom passed onto him, seeing the beauty in the most different creatures.

"You're right here," he whispers.

Caitlin's hand lands over his, which feels colder still, and as he finds himself drowning in her eyes, the cold grows well below zero.

Barry winces, jerking back his hand before frostbite can set it. What did he do to deserve- but he's no sooner looked at Caitlin for an explanation or she grabs hold of the cuff he'd unlocked, and fastens it around her wrist again.

She pulls the key out and throws it towards the front door.

"Caitlin gone," comes her grave echo, and he finds any affirmations stuck at the back of his throat. He can try to connect with her all he wants; he'll never dig deep enough to get at the core of what was done to her.

Caitlin's stuck in an unnatural state, something in between her human side and the magic that's meant to bring about the winter freeze- she's trapped, physically and mentally, the beastliness of what a Hunter did to her showing on the outside, mangled into something monstrous and dissipating on the inside.

It's not her chains that keep her here. Rather it's her demons.

Maybe it's time she confronts them.

.

.

 **tbc**

.

*Mythology adapted from Wiki and Norse-Mythology.o r g.

*Thank you to EVERYONE reading and reviewing, I'm so happy to read you all are having as much fun with this story as I am!


	4. Chapter 4

.

 **& LOVE HER ANYWAY**

part four

.

.

The moving truck pulled away from the West house with a groaning huff, its wheels slipping off the sidewalk and hurtling down the street with as little mercy as it had grace. Barry's hands came away from the living room window he'd stood pressed against for the better part of an hour, watching the movers load the final pieces of furniture from Iris' house into the truck.

He already said goodbye to Iris and her dad, but he still couldn't believe his best friend had gone- Iris promised she'd email and call, but he knew she'd make new friends in no time, and Barry feared she'd forget all about him.

"Why does Iris have to go?" he asked, and walked over to the couch, dragging his feet as if they weighed 40 pounds each. He sat down next to his dad, who promptly put his newspaper away and threw an arm around his shoulders.

"Joe wanted Iris to be closer to her mom, after what happened."

Barry hadn't forgotten. How the red and blue lights flickered in his bedroom window, how the neighborhood pulled together and helped look for Iris' mom for days. How they'd found her, dumped somewhere in an alley and she'd been really hurt.

He hadn't forgotten about the word whispered by all the grown-ups either, the word Iris cried into his shoulder only a few days ago.

So he knew why Iris had to go, why she wanted to be close to her mom at the hospital- the healers there would help Mrs. West get better.

It wasn't something his mom was strong enough to fix.

"Because of the bad man."

"Because of the Hunter, Barry," his dad corrected, something grave in his voice usually reserved for his mom or his patients. "This is why I don't want you reading fairytales. Hunters are bad people."

"Mom says no one's really _really_ bad."

"I was wrong," came his mom's voice from the other side of the room, and she soon joined them on the couch.

Barry frowned. His mom was never wrong about anything. Why was that word, _Hunter_ , so big?

His mom looked at his dad, like his dad looked at her, one of those wordless conversations they shared whenever they were still deciding how to talk to him about a certain topic. He wished they wouldn't do that; he was eight now, and he understood bad things happened.

"Hunters aren't like us, son," his dad said. "They-"

It was a bad word, that much he realized, even though Hunters in fairytales were often heroes. He hated that word nonetheless, for stealing Mrs. West away, for making his best friend move.

"They profit from magic," his mom supplied. "They take people away from their families and exploit their abilities."

Hunters came for those with magic, like one came for Iris' mom- and many of Barry's nights were now haunted with nightmares where a Hunter took his mom.

It only made him hate the word more.

"One of them took Mrs. West's fire," his mom added.

" _Nora_ ," his dad cautioned.

Barry tucked closer to his dad, panic making his heart beat faster; Iris's mom came from a long line of Phoenixes, and they drew power from their fire. But he also learned that fire never died. It was a lot like nature and the seasons that way, a cycle never broken.

Could Mrs. West have died if she hadn't been so strong?

"Is Iris' mom going to be okay?" he asked, caught in a sudden fear for all his friends that had magic. What if someone came for them? What could he do?

"She will be." His mom drew a hand through his hair. "She's not alone. She's with people who love her very much."

 _... help her .._

When Barry wakes, he doesn't open his eyes, still images playing behind his eyelids of times long gone.

He'd never forgotten that word, _Hunter_ , so big and so frightening it'd somehow always lived inside him, right beneath the surface of his skin, a cautionary tale. It served him well now, that fear- how many people in town would've known that's who hurt Caitlin? How many of them would've cared?

Voices drift through the bungalow, low and muffled; he can't make out who's talking or how many voices there are, but it's strange to hear in any case. His dad's rarely up this early.

"Who was at the door?" he asks half an hour later, showered and dressed, and he finds a feast waiting for him on the kitchen table- a plate of bacon and eggs for both of them, fresh orange juice and coffee, and a bowl of fruit for them to share.

His dad should upset his routine more often; he could get used to this.

"Funeral director," his dad says, and the spoonful of eggs Barry whisked into his mouth all of a sudden sours. That image of a gurney being wheeled out of the cottage the night of the storm hasn't left him, not the cold or the flash of white eyes through the dark- if only he'd checked on Mr. Hunter the day before. Who knows what could've been avoided.

"Zacharia's daughter is driving in to claim the body. He needed some paper work."

His food turns to ash on his tongue. He doesn't want to think about Mr. Hunter's family- not about a daughter, or a son, or grandkids, because that makes him feel all the more complicit. Rationally he knows he didn't do anything, but his inaction could've killed Mr. Hunter all the same. What if he'd been in distress the day before and he'd been distracted by taking care of Caitlin? What if he'd been out in that storm searching for the person unintentionally responsible for the old man's death?

"I know you blame yourself."

Barry blinks up at his dad. Is it that obvious?

"I found the meds in the mailbox."

Oh.

"Barr, you know this wasn't your fault."

He digs his fork through his food. "If I'd made sure to check on him-"

"There's nothing you could've done," his dad says, his voice gaining strength. That means there's no more arguing about this after he's done talking. "He had a weak heart, Barry. He belonged in a care home, not out here."

Barry bites the inside of his cheek. "Was he in any pain?"

His dad sighs.

He never does get his answer.

It's his dad's way of telling him not to linger on this, because if he does it'll never end, it'll become an endless circle of devastating thoughts he won't unravel until it breaks his back. He's already drowning- it's what led him to that house and made him do something terrible to an innocent girl, it stopped him thinking about others and made him selfish, and it hasn't gotten him anywhere yet.

He has to focus on finding Caitlin's home.

He hopes to find _Caitlin_ , in so many ways.

In town he buys more ice, with Mr. Albert's curiosity only increasing. "Our freezer died," he provides, since it wouldn't be the first time something breaks at the bungalow, or the first time that his dad tasked him to fix it, or the first time he lets the problem worsen before doing anything about it.

It's been a recurring theme throughout the past fourteen years.

He never sees anything through.

But that's going to change- he's going to look for answers and find them, and he'll have Caitlin home with her family before Christmas. Surely they'll be able to connect to her.

He hurries to the house, his backpack loaded with his laptop, books for Caitlin, and food, fully armed to get them through the last stretch of this.

"Caitlin?"

He falls through the front door, finding the spot Caitlin had claimed for herself by the stairs empty, her chains unlocked. It does little to ease his guilt over what he did. He still locked her up, he still assumed the worst of her. Caitlin punished him for that by chaining herself again, by locking the girl inside of her deeper still and turning her back. Words failed to describe what that image had done to him, what that painfully simple gesture and the phrase, "Caitlin, gone," made him face.

He isn't the hero of this story, or the sidekick- at best, he's the morally gray villain who ends up doing the right thing. He hopes for that, at least.

When he left her last night, leaving the keys to her chains where she could easily reach them, he hadn't thought to find her gone; he'd feared she'd never move again, stuck in this horrible place, physically and mentally.

"Caitlin?" he calls again, but soon finds her in the living room, sitting in the center of the couch, still as a statue.

She takes quiet note of him, her eyes ticking from his face, down to his hands and then his feet, before she returns to staring at her hands, lying loosely in her lap. Maybe she figures he's the one she's stuck with for now, at least until he gives her some idea of where she should go for answers.

"More comfortable than the floor, huh?" he jokes, or he tries, because he's never considered himself to be particularly funny.

Caitlin seems to agree.

"Can I join you?"

After a moment of hesitation, Caitlin moves to her left, allowing him some space on the couch.

He grabs his laptop and starts his search right away.

Sadly, after even the most cursory of searches he realizes it's impossible to find a missing persons report filed for someone with only a first name for reference- in Connecticut alone there are pages upon pages dedicated to missing people, not all of them with pictures attached, and that's as discouraging as it is terrifying. Who are all these people? Who's out there fighting for them?

Caitlin gives up on keeping him company, and steals upstairs with the ice he brought- if she meant to remind him how she's gone, how she's been made to disappear, she keeps it to herself. He couldn't bear to hear it either.

He won't give up though- he has a backup plan should he not find any other information online. Joe West.

Next he searches for North Hollow's property deeds, to see if the town has any record of this house. A historical map on the website shows the town was much bigger in colonial times, but all those houses disappeared over the centuries to make way for the modern structures that stood today. Some of the more recent maps show more structures scattered in the woods than he's even found- unfortunately, the Connecticut Land Records website asks for 'office types' and 'instrument numbers' before they'll give him access to any documents, but they're both terms he's never heard about in his life.

Convenient.

Here he thought he could find anything online these days- goes to show how small this town is, and how behind on its time some of its services are.

But this won't stop him; and old town told old tales, and someone here had an answer to his questions. Old documents were stored in the archives in town hall and he knew exactly the person to see about that too.

There's no point in aimlessly Googling if he can go down there and get his hands on the documents themselves. With that in mind he heads upstairs to tell Caitlin he's going out- but he freezes on the landing when he finds the bathroom door wide-open, giving him a complete view of the bathroom and the tub, and the girl soaking in it, completely undressed.

"Please"—His eyes widen, only because the tub obscures his view- otherwise he'd turn around— "tell me you're not naked."

A triumphant smirk curls around a corner of Caitlin's mouth, and she folds both arms over a side of the tub. "Safe to look," she teases, and it serves no other purpose than winding him up more. This is about the last thing he's after, but he does have something to tell her- coming in won't have to mean anything more than what he makes of it.

"Oh boy," he breathes, and covers a hand over his eyes, stumbling into the bathroom blindly, and sits down on the floor with little more to guide him than his hearing.

Caitlin giggles.

Barry peeks one eye through his fingers to check the coast is clear, but this low to the floor, and with Caitlin pushed up to the tub like that, he can't see anything he's not supposed to see.

"Are you- cold enough?"

Caitlin nods, and rests her chin on her arms, white locks of hair falling over one of her eyes.

He reaches out and pushes them back, and she lets him without flinching- she's not scared of him anymore, no longer hesitant in her movements or her expressions, and he can't decide if that's a good sign. After what he did he expected the opposite, and he hates thinking she learned that that kind of violation translated into anything remotely positive.

Of course, she could probably kill him with the touch of her hand.

"I'm going to find out who you are," he says softly, drawn in by Caitlin's sad eyes- they won't be like that forever; he'll make sure of that. "I'm going to prove to you that you're not gone, that you're alive, and you belong somewhere out there."

Caitlin sighs. "Why?"

"I shouldn't have said what I said yesterday." Barry hangs his head in shame, his guilt tripling. "Or done what I did."

Mimicking his gesture, Caitlin pushes the tips of her fingers into his hair, tilting her head as if she's sympathetic when she shouldn't be- she's the victim, not him, and he's far from deserving any sort of consolation. Still, despite her cold fingers his skin warms at her touch.

"Safe," she mutters.

"Are you?" he asks. "Are you safe here?"

Caitlin glances around the room, eyes settling on the sink, the mirror above it, the toilet, but they all fail to answer his question. "Don't know," she answers defeated, casting down her eyes.

How can she be safe here when all that lives within these walls are memories? When the ghost of a Hunter roams these rooms? Where the shadow of a girl named Caitlin grows ever smaller?

"I'm going to find out who you are." Barry nods. "I'm going to find you."

Caitlin looks at him, his face providing no more of an answer than the rest of the room. A frown knits her eyebrows together, creating three short vertical worry lines between them- it's oddly adorable in this strange backdrop of a setting.

"Just you wait." Barry scrambles up from the ground, making sure to keep his back turned. "I'll have this case cracked in no time."

This doesn't earn him a giggle. He can hardly blame her. So far his detective skills haven't led him anywhere.

Barry hesitates in the doorway. He still doesn't like the idea of leaving her alone- he'd sleep here if it didn't mean his dad sending out a search party.

"I left you some books and food downstairs." He raps his fingers against the doorframe. "I won't be long."

Water splashes behind him.

"Okay," Caitlin says.

As quick as he can, he makes his way to the town hall. The white colonial-style building served a lot of uses- it's where people passing through went for what little tourist information there was on hand, where locals filed their complaints with the administration, and where the major had his office. In fact, it's so small that the front desk provided most of those services, including granting access to the town's archives.

Lucky for him the girl behind the front desk, Brie Larvan, was around his age, and like him couldn't wait to get out of North Hollow one day. They hung out from time to time, when she showed off her bee colonies, and brought around the finest honey he'd ever tasted, or whenever either of them needed to complain.

There were times he could appreciate how little things changed around here, and Brie was definitely one of them. She was often dressed in some shade of yellow, her outfit today consisting a warmer butterscotch shade.

"Still looking for treasure in the woods, Barry Allen?" she asks, rising on her toes.

"Found some, actually." He beams, leaning his elbows down on the counter between them. "There's a huge house not far from where Zacharia Hunter lives..."

It takes but the single word to humble him again- he doesn't see that changing anywhere in the near future.

"Lived," Barry corrects, "and I was hoping to-"

"You mean the old Zolomon place."

Barry blinks. "You know it?"

If at all possible, Brie's eyes grow even bigger behind her glasses, twinkling with mirth. "You don't know the story?"

He shakes his head. Besides Brie and a handful of others, he doesn't interact with a whole lot of people here, and every day this week has showed him what a sheltered life he's been living, entirely by choice. Was this yet another thing that'd past him by?

"Generations of Zolomons lived in that house up until twenty years ago." Brie leans towards him as if she's sharing a deep dark secret known to a few. "That's when James Zolomon killed his wife Ashley in a drunken rage in front of their young son."

His lips part. "That's awful."

Hadn't anything good ever happened in that house? Were its foundations marred by tragedy and blood and suffering? He had to get Caitlin out of there.

"Dad went to prison," Brie says, "No one's lived there since."

"How do you know all this?"

" _You_ explore the forest." Brie shrugs. "I read everything I can get my hands on. There isn't much else to do around here."

Barry smiles. "Eight more months before you head to college though."

Brie beams, pushing her glasses back up her nose. "And it can't come soon enough."

As much as he'd like to linger and lament the traps of small towns with Brie, he can't waste any more time than he already has. He's getting closer, he can feel it, and his next step will be seeing Joe in the city, where he can do a more detailed search, access databases he can't access as a civilian, and maybe cross-reference the name Zolomon with.

Yes. That's the plan.

Now he just has to come up with an excuse that won't make his dad suspicious- if he finds Caitlin's full name and family he won't be back here until he can reunite them, and that might take a while.

Back at the bungalow, he packs a bag of clothes that'll last a few days, pacing up and down the room while he tries to come up with something to tell his dad. The truth is out of the question; if his dad found out what he'd been up to these past few days he'd be grounded for life and never see the light of day again, let alone Caitlin.

Some sliver of the truth, then, so his dad doesn't get too suspicious. It'll be weird either way, escaping to the city for the second time this week, and he's not at all sure his dad will let him go.

So, armed with a steaming cup of coffee as a bribe, Barry makes his way down to his dad's study. Moment of truth.

"Dad?" he enters, guided by his resolve to bring Caitlin home. "Can we talk?"

His dad's barely distracted from his computer. "Of course."

Barry deposits the cup of coffee on his dad's desk, and shuffles back and forth a few times, slipping his hands in his back pockets. This'll never work, his dad will see right through him and he'll have to answer questions he won't like.

"I'm going to the city for a few days," he blurts out.

At this, his dad looks up and takes off his glasses, studying his face with narrowed eyes; it's a way he has whenever he can't tell whether he's being serious or not.

"I'm going to see Iris and Joe." He nods. "And maybe-"

"Wells?"

He meets his dad's eyes, stunned into silence.

His dad smiles. "You loved going there with your mom."

With good reason, he thought he'd meet with more resistance. Taking off like this is out of character for him, and he hadn't felt the need to see Joe or Iris for over fourteen years because they reminded him of a time he'd lost, a time that had been taken. He still had little interest in reminiscing over old times.

His dad's eyes narrow again. "Is everything okay with you, son?"

"Yeah," he says, but the lie weighs too heavy for him to hold it up- there's been too little truth in his life and it's suffocating him. He doesn't want to lie to his dad any more than he has to.

Barry sighs. "I've been-"

He closes his eyes and he's out in the herb garden again, his mom's wandering forest in the center of the city- he smells basil and parsley and mint, and—

"I'm stuck here, dad," he says, and bites his tongue, but not before letting it all out, "I never realized how much until a few days ago, and-"

He's betrayed the part of him that's his mom, that's what, and he's been unsuccessfully flailing around trying to fix that. What does he have to show for it? Caitlin hasn't gotten better, and he still doesn't know where she's from.

"Have I been holding you back?" comes his dad's question.

—and it absolutely devastates him.

"You've been keeping me safe," Barry hushes, and trips a step closer. He hadn't meant to sound ungrateful; this is as much his own fault as it's been his dad's way of coping, and how can he blame his dad for that when it's served him well? He's been getting by, and he's been learning, and while he's lonely, he's never been alone a day in his life.

"I know that," he says, "I just-"

His dad nods, and stands up, rounding his desk. "Maybe we've both been a little stuck."

It's hard for him to meet his dad's eye, because now he's close to tears and he's that nine-year old crying silently in his arms at his mom's funeral, stripped bare of everything that gave life meaning.

Maybe they've been stuck without either of them realizing how much, and finding Caitlin in that attic pried him loose, gave him a sense of purpose. He's still that nine-year old boy, looking for his mom's approval.

"Check in with me?" his dad asks, putting a hand on his shoulder. "So I don't worry too much?"

Barry sniffles, and nods. "I will."

And then his dad pulls him into a hug, the first in ages, and he lets it all out for a while; he cries in his dad's arms like he's that boy again, alone and misunderstood, finally realizing that was never true- his dad reads him as well as his mom ever did, and he's smart enough to know something's been going on. Who knows- in a few days, he might be able tell him the truth.

He takes the car and drives it into the woods, leaving it unlocked on the access road while he fetches Caitlin. He's made up his mind about this; she needs to get out of this house.

He finds her in the living room, rifling through the books he brought from home. She straightens when she sees him, as if she tunes in to his nervous energy, and stands up.

"I'm leaving for the city," he says. "I know a detective there, who'll be able to help us. I'd like you to come with me."

Caitlin inches a step back.

"I'm not leaving you alone again."

"Better alone."

"No one's better off alone."

Caitlin isn't convinced.

"Look, I was wrong, okay? I made a mistake." He conquers a step forward, because he's not taking no for an answer. Too much has happened in this house; too much pain and misery for anyone to stay here- he should've done this before, gotten her out of here, but he's seeing more clearly now. He's finally seeing more clearly.

"What was done to you was terrible," he says, "but you can't let that destroy you. You can't let yourself die, or disappear, or let this man take any more from you than he already has."

That's what the Hunter wanted, for her to die alone and in distress, scared and in the dark- and he'll pull at her until she listens, until the light finds her again and she no longer has to be afraid. Her answers don't lie in this house, like his have never been in this town or the city- the answers live inside them.

"Let me help you find yourself," he pleads. "And maybe we'll find who did this to you."

That gets Caitlin's attention; her eyes fix on him and he promises, though not out loud, that he'll find whoever locked her up- it had to be someone who knew the area, who knew the house was left abandoned decades ago, and was familiar with the woods. He'll find that person. For her. For himself. For everyone who has ever lost a loved one.

Caitlin grinds her teeth together. " _Hunter_."

"Yes"—he nods—"we'll find the Hunter who did this."

Then, at last, Caitlin surrenders- she nods and closes the distance between them to a few feet, ready to follow him wherever this rabbit hole leads.

With some urging he gets her to wear some of his old kicks, even though they're far too big on her, and helps her tie her hair back, so the shocks of white can hide in the hood of her jacket.

He gathers everything he left at the house and loads it into the car, and Caitlin slowly descends the few steps of the porch, like she's never been outside in her life. She turns and glances back at the house, and he wishes he could read her mind. He wishes he could make sense of her, so that he might be able to help her better.

"You ready?" he asks.

Caitlin looks at him over her shoulder, and points at the house. "Prison."

It was a prison, yes, like it was once a happy family home, like it's been derelict and abandoned and withering away. Once upon a time it'd probably been someone's dream, and became the living expression of other people's nightmares, a vile man's hiding place, and the source of too much darkness.

"Not anymore," he whispers, and stretches out a hand towards her. A breeze circles his fingers, tickling the palm of his hand.

He watches Caitlin look at one of her hands, then at his again. They are so different, yet so very much the same.

A few moments later she touches her fingers to his; they're eyes catch, and he smiles, guiding her to the car.

Soon, they're on the road, Caitlin in the passenger seat next to him, and she marvels at every sight they come across. She sees North Hollow for the first time, the small town square around the white fountain, and the little white church with a golden cross on top of it.

They make their way out of civilization quickly, and they're surrounded by the woods for a whole hour, down a long winding road through the forest, yellow and brown leaves raining down as they drive past, each tree preparing for the winter freeze. Once they make it out of the forest wide-open fields lie before them, the flat fields harvested, stretching as far as the eye can see, soil hardened against the coming season.

"Winter," Caitlin says.

"What?"

Caitlin stares at her hands. "I'm-"

But if she meant to convey any sort of meaning it dies out, because Caitlin frowns, and sits staring at her hands the rest of the drive- is it that she's afraid, or that she can't remember?

 _.. winter ..._

What about winter?

 _... hurry .._

Once they reach the city Caitlin ducks, though she quickly sees there's no need for that; magic kind and humans live side by side here, and the sidewalks fill with people like her, like him, everyone with different colored hair and shades of skin tone, creatures with more than two eyes or too many fingers on one hand, ones that hovered and flew or could disappear into thin air- she'd fit right in here, and he'd feel right at home again, and he's left to wonder if that's still possible for him. If he can redeem himself in the eyes of magic.

If he is, in some small way, already doing that.

"Welcome back, Mr. Allen."

Dr Wells greets them at the door, a young woman by his side who conjures up a memory from a life long past, of a little girl chasing him through these rooms.

Jesse Wells, he realizes. She was three last time he saw her.

"And this must be Caitlin," Dr Wells says, taking Caitlin in from head to toe, and holds out a friendly hand in greeting.

Startled, Caitlin grabs around his arm and sneaks behind him.

Heat diffuses in his cheeks at Caitlin's sudden reaction, and he's an equal amount embarrassed and equal parts flattered that she defaults to him now- that wouldn't have been true a few days ago.

Luckily Dr Wells isn't insulted by her reaction, but laughs instead. He turns to Jesse, wheeling a few feet back. "This is my daughter, Jesse."

Jesse waves. "Hey, Barry. Caitlin."

"Anything you need, you ask her."

"Thank you, Dr Wells," he says, and watches his mom's old mentor disappear to his study.

"I can take you to your rooms," Jesse says, her face open and friendly and inviting- she must get that from her mom.

 _.. go ..._

—twinkles a voice near his ear, each plea since they left North Hollow growing more urgent. Where's this sudden rush coming from? Was he forgetting something?

"Actually," he says, "I have to go."

Caitlin's hold around his arm tightens, and he turns to her quickly, before she panics.

"I told you why, remember?"

 _... find her .._

"Detective." Caitlin nods, as if she hears the voices too. "Find Caitlin."

He smiles. "This is the safest place you can be right now."

Caitlin keeps nodding. "Safe."

"Would you like to see the garden?" Jesse asks Caitlin, her nose scrunching up with an exciteful smile. "You can help me pick out a Christmas tree."

Caitlin looks at him, her eyes wide, skin smooth and shining in this new lighting- she's almost glowing, like this.

"Don't worry," he says softly, tapping a finger to the tip of her nose. "I'll be back before you know it."

Again, Caitlin nods, and grants him a small and hesitant smile- he'll let it fuel him in this crazy chase the spirits want him to undertake all of a sudden. Was there a reason? Was time running out? Whose time?

He tracks a few steps backwards and watches as Jesse leads Caitlin deeper into the house, Caitlin's shoulders hunched, her chest pulled inward in an effort to make herself as small as possible. But he'll show her; he'll make her see there's no one on this planet she needs to make herself small for, because she's a force of nature, and nature can't be stopped or tamed.

It's a twenty-minute drive to the precinct where Joe worked as a homicide detective. He hasn't seen or spoken to Joe since the day of his mom's funeral, and the same went for Iris. After the Wests moved they managed to stay in touch, and even managed sleepovers once Iris' mom got better, but after his mom died he effectively pushed everyone away. Since his dad did the same it made it even easier to forget about his life here, to leave the memories behind and deal with the pain somewhere remote and off the grid, until they ended up in their current situation- an unhealthy one, it now seemed. Both stuck in a decent life, but not really living to their full potential.

What if Joe blames him for disappearing from Iris' life after he made her promise she wouldn't do the same to him? Would he understand?

He heads up to the first floor, where all the homicide detectives sat in a central bullpen, Joe's desk in the far corner.

"Joe." He waves, catching the detective's attention.

"Barry-y," Joe beams, shaking with that same old laughter as he meets him halfway, and pulls him into his arms, as if they never said goodbye at all. Maybe they hadn't; maybe he's making this into a much bigger deal than it is- life happens and it changes, and people change, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. His family and Joe's never parted on bad terms.

"Good to see you, son." Joe slaps at his back. "How have you been?"

"Good, yeah." He nods, breathing more freely. "Working on getting my first degree."

"Impressive."

"What about you? And Iris?" he asks, heartened by this easy conversation despite the fourteen years that's separated them- he worried too much even then, that he'd lose Iris, or Joe, but he's not sure he ever could. That's magic, if ever he experienced it.

"Studying Psychology at college," Joe says. "Yeah, she wants to help people who went through what her mom went through."

Barry releases a breath, and smiles- Iris wants to help people like Caitlin. That sounds about right.

"Look, Joe, I need your help with something," he says as tactfully as he can muster. He can't just come out with everything he knows and expect Joe to help him. "A missing girl. And I only have a first name."

"What's this have to do with you?"

"I found her."

Joe's eyebrows shoot up.

"In the woods," he adds. "She's lost and confused, and the only thing she's told me is that she's Jötunn and her name's Caitlin. She's with Dr Wells now."

Joe's eyes travel around the room, pausing over every face, but as far as he can tell no one's taken note of them. "Follow me," Joe says, and leads him into an empty office, where there's a computer they can safely access without anyone spying on them.

Better safe than sorry.

"Caitlin, Jötunn." Joe muses as he calls up the police database, typing in her name and species with both index fingers- still as technologically challenged as ever.

The database pings after a few seconds.

"Here she is." Joe points at the computer screen. "Caitlin Snow."

Barry's arms uncross. "What?"

"Caitlin Snow," Joe reads, and narrates the highlights. "Reported missing by her mom two months ago."

Barry closes his eyes, trying to wrap his mind around it all- two months she was locked in that house, right there, in North Hollow, under everyone's nose. How had no one known? Why hadn't magic interfered sooner?

"Biochemistry major."

Caitlin's a scientist? The same girl who talked in broken sentences now? Who could barely remember a thing about her life before? What horrors befell her to push that all back?

"Never showed up to her morning classes," Joe says. "They looked for her but the trail went cold fast."

Who would think to search for her in North Hollow? By car it was three hours away, and even if someone had thought to come out that far the woods were a maze, even to those who knew them well.

Joe looks up at him. "You saying you found this girl?"

Barry nods, distracted by the picture that shows up on the computer screen along with Caitlin's missing persons file- there she is, Caitlin Snow, biochemistry major, 22 years old.

He grabs his phone and takes a picture, the girl nothing like the creature he'd found in the attic; her hair's a deep auburn with some lighter hints to it, skin pale but rosy, and her eyes the most lively brown. What happened to her? Did someone just snatch her off the street?

"And she had no idea what happened?"

"She might," he lies. "She hasn't told me."

"Don't you live in –and I quote- _the middle of nowhere_ these days?" Joe giggles, and waves a hand. "You're just like your mom, collecting strays."

He frowns. How do people keep bringing this back to his mom? He has no magic, he never has, and he never will- he'd know if he was like his mom.

"Your dad was a stray, you know," Joe says. "Under her spell the moment he laid eyes on her. Never did leave her side again."

Barry smiles mournfully. His mom was the love of his dad's life; he never did see his dad look at another woman the way he looked at his mom.

 _.. Zolomon ..._

 _... the boy .._

—a voice urges. The boy, Barry thinks, what would a young boy have to do with all of this?

"There was something else."

He hopes he loosened Joe up enough to ask this of him as well.

"A murder in my middle of nowhere. An Ashley Zolomon."

Joe sighs, and shakes his head, but he doesn't complain- he types the name into another database, bringing up the Zolomon file to read. "That's just tragic," Joe comments as his eyes tick down the page, over the gruesome details of the case- dad drunk, mom dead, and a son caught in between.

 _.. the boy ..._

"What happened to the boy?"

"Let me see." Joe scrolls down the page. "Here it is. Nine-year old Zolomon, Hunter."

His heart drops to his stomach.

No.

"Went into foster care," Joe says. "Hopped around a bunch of orphanages. Lives here in the city.

It can't be.

Joe asks, "Why?" but he's beyond answering that, he's beyond this room and transported back to the house in the woods, asking Caitlin, _"Who did this to you? Who chained you up and left you here_ to die _?"_

"Hunter," he breathes Caitlin's reply, trying to swallow around the lump in his throat but fails. He wires a hand through his hair and wipes over his mouth. How could he have been so blind? So deaf to her clues?

"She tried to tell me-" he whispers, while every broken conversation he shared with Caitlin replays in his mind. That's who she'd gone looking for the night of the storm, that's who she's been chasing in her nightmares- Caitlin wasn't just taken by a Hunter, but by someone _named Hunter_.

Hunter Zolomon.

Had her rage mistakenly led her to Mr. Hunter? Had she followed him and heard him call out that name and seen red? Maybe she'd told him the truth, maybe it'd been an accident- Hunter, _a Hunter_ , locked her up and kept her like a prisoner, deprived her of food and water and then left her to die. He'd act rashly too if he thought he'd found the source of that suffering.

Oh. He's been so wrong.

So incredibly wrong.

 _... go to her .._

 _.. tell her ..._

 _... Hunter .._

He swallows hard. "Joe, I have to go," he hushes, and grabs his phone, quickly taking a picture of Hunter and the address displayed. He has no clue what he's going to do with it, but he feels like he'll need it, somewhere in the near future.

"You're not in any kind of trouble, are you?"

"No."

Joe cocks an eyebrow.

"I promise. I just want to get Caitlin home."

"Barr."

"He's a Hunter, Joe."

His heart races as he catches Joe's eyes, pulsing with a determination he's scarcely felt in his life- he has to talk to Caitlin, he needs to know what she knows, make sure this is the demon who stole her away. Maybe it's the sight of that determination that convinces Joe to let him go, or maybe the sound of that big bad word, but Joe doesn't warn him not to do anything stupid, or to be careful, or to let the police take care of it. Maybe, like him, he wants to give Caitlin a crack at this like Iris' mom never got the chance to.

He's back at Dr Wells' house in half the time it took him to drive to the precinct, but he doesn't have a single minute to lose- he rushes past Jesse to the back of the house, where Dr Wells sits in a large veranda overlooking a massive garden. It throws him off for a full minute, to find a garden this impressive in the city. He'd already guessed magic made the house appear smaller on the outside, but this wide-open stretch of grass leading down to a lake near the horizon, the lines of trees planted in perfect rows- what splendor Dr Wells keeps hidden in here.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Dr Wells asks- Jesse joins them in the veranda and sits down opposite her dad, focusing on the chess game they have going.

His eyes fall to Caitlin, zigzagging through the line of trees on the far end of the garden. Barefooted.

"Barry?"

Without taking his eyes off Caitlin, he answers, "I found who did this to her," and leaves the room, setting a strong pace towards Caitlin.

Her bare feet wade through the grass. It's warm out here, even with the strange weather they've been having, and not for the first time he wonders if Dr Wells' house is even in the city. Maybe the front door has transported them elsewhere, where the true evils of the world can't touch them. He hopes to God that's true.

Caitlin lights up when she sees him approaching, and his heart constricts- he's about to confront her with a whole lot that she might not want to hear.

"Hunter Zolomon," he says, and holds up the picture on his phone.

Caitlin stiffens, and the ground beneath her feet freezes over.

"Is he the one who hurt you?" He tracks a few steps closer, purpose behind every step he takes towards her, careful where he sets his feet lest he slips again.

Her eyes flash a brighter white.

"Killed me," Caitlin grits, her hands balled into fists, and she shakes violently- not from the cold, he knows that doesn't bother her, but her anger sets in her veins and vibrates through her not unlike an earthquake.

"Caitlin." He shakes his head, a cold front making his breath visible. "You're not dead. You're not _gone_."

"Not"—Caitlin feels a hand over her heart, shifting her weight from one foot to the other—"dead?"

How can he make her see this? How can he make her realize? She has a mom out there waiting for her to come home, and a girl inside of her waiting to see the light of day again, and, "I can take you to him," slips out so unexpected he means to take it back right away. Take her to him? To do what? To face her demons?

What if it's what she needs?

Caitlin tilts her head, and wraps a hand around one of her own wrists, cradling it to her chest like she had yesterday- the last time she tried to find the root of her pain he'd chained her to the stairs. It's understandable she's wary, now, and he's well aware he's going against things he'd been taught to believe in- but even his mom had been wrong about Hunters.

So he surrenders to it, to the idea of Caitlin taking her revenge, to the idea of him leading the way. "I won't stop you," he says, and the words taste almost sweet. "He's your demon to fight."

It should scare him senseless, this disregard for human life, but what about every inhumane thing done to Caitlin? What about her pain? Her suffering? Who answers for that?

"Bad man," Caitlin mutters, tears in her eyes. "Hurt me."

She's like a wounded bird with broken wings. She was left to be picked off by the predators lurking in the forest, abandoned to the elements, and her eyes flash white with it again- her anger, her pain, her justice.

"Hurt _him_ ," she angers.

Yes.

She'll hurt him.

And he'll take her to him.

 _.. Barry ..._

 _... follow your heart .._

Barry blinks at the tears that come to his eyes. Does this count as following his heart?

Caitlin steps forward, untouched by the icy cold at her feet, and answers his question- she draws her arms around his waist and hugs herself close, her ear resting over his heart.

He releases a shuddery breath and touches his lips to her hair.

This is what she needs.

Hunter Zolomon left her to be picked off by the predators lurking in the forest, but this wounded bird had yet life coursing through her veins.

He'll see her through this, even if it's the last sane thing he does.

Then, Caitlin takes him by the hand. He follows her inside, his feet like lead.

"Dr Wells-" he starts, hoping to provide some explanation for why they're leaving again, but can't find anything to say. He can't even bring himself to meet the man's eye. How can he justify this to someone else?

"What is it your mom would say?" Dr Wells asks, arms crossed over his chest, with that wisdom in his voice his mom somehow mastered too.

He knows exactly what she would say.

"Follow your heart, Barry."

The words themselves open up a chamber in his heart he thought lost, and Caitlin's hand in his opens another, the steps they take towards the front door a third, and finally, a fourth, when they're in the car on their way to confront Hunter Zolomon with all his misdeeds.

Is this good? Is this kind? He can't tell the difference anymore.

All that drives him is Caitlin and getting her home.

It's getting dark outside, the sun slowly setting over the city and starting the night life buzzing- the address he got from Joe leads them south of the tracks, where the bustle of the city makes way for low income housing and cheap rental units, all parsed at odd angles on interconnected pieces of land- some have all the windows boarded up, others are alive with activity.

He hears Caitlin breathing in the tight space of the car, but they don't exchange a single word. They both know where they're headed, and what's likely to happen- Caitlin's grown much stronger than when he first found her, and it won't take her much to do a whole lot of damage.

Is this right, letting her become the wolf? the monster? the beast?

After another few minutes, driving past the mail boxes slow enough to catch the numbers, they come to a single-story house. No lights on inside that he can see.

"This is it," he says, and parks the car by the side of the road.

Caitlin turns her head. "Barry, stay."

"No"—he turns his head so fast his neck twinges—"You're not going in there alone."

Caitlin stares, her face blank.

What's she thinking? Last time she faced this man he overpowered her, he drugged her and tied her up, and she might not be that same girl ever again but there's strength in numbers. He won't leave her side again. He won't abandon her. He'd never forgive himself if anything happened to her.

Without another word, Caitlin leaves the car.

He's quick to follow, out of the car and down the short paved path towards the front door.

Caitlin freezes the doorknob and the lock of the door, both of which crumble at another touch of her hand.

She's thought this through, his little wolf.

Soon, they're in a dark hallway stretching all the way to the back of the house, the waning daylight barely allowing enough light inside to give them a clear picture of the layout. He hears the drip of a tap somewhere deeper in the house, the kitchen maybe, and the air hasn't gone stale- Could someone be living here?

There's a bare minimum of furniture in the living room and the adjacent dining room; a couch for two and a coffee table, but no TV, and a table that can seat four. No pictures on the walls. No wallpaper.

The room is cold and bare and impersonal.

He and Caitlin tread carefully and push deeper into the house, but find each room as empty as the one before. No signs of life anywhere.

A hint of a scream travels through the hallway.

Caitlin freezes.

Was that-? A scream? Coming from where?

Did this son of a bitch have some other creature locked in here?

Heart pounding in his ears, it hits him. "The basement," he whispers, and follows Caitlin into the kitchen, where they find a small door equipped with several locks. All of them unlocked.

 _.. hurry..._

 _... save him .._

If he wasn't certain Caitlin heard the voices before he is now, because she shoots into action- she opens the door, a pitch-black staircase leading the final stretch down.

A metal clang sounds. Followed by a whimper.

Showing no hesitation, Caitlin descends into the dark, her every step inaudibly soft, or maybe he simply can't hear it over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears- a few days ago he sensed no danger, but now the hairs ate the back of his neck stand on end, his ribs straining around his lungs, and his throat has gone dry; each of his senses in complete overdrive.

There's nothing but danger here.

Still, he follows directly behind Caitlin.

At the bottom of the stairs his feet hit concrete, a wall directly in front of them.

"Quit your whimpering," a voice cuts through the room, starting ice burning around Caitlin's hands- he's right behind her and can hear her breathing deepen, and he's right behind her when they round the stairs, a large wide basement stretching out ahead.

And what he sees chills him to the bone.

There's another gurney, like the one in that room Caitlin destroyed, but this one has a young boy strapped to it- red skin, the stumpy horns on his forehead filed down, an IV drip in his arm. Hunter Zolomon standing over him.

Red blurs his entire field of vision. How is this real? How do people like him exist? Why do fairytales still make Hunters out to be the heroes, when they're monsters?

" _Hunter_ ," Caitlin growls, catching Hunter Zolomon's attention.

" _You_ ," Hunter Zolomon hisses, but he's hit by a cold blast from Caitlin's hand, knocking him down to the floor.

Hunter recovers quickly and stands to his full height again, yet for some reason Caitlin smiles. Her hand shoots out, and an icicle forms midair- Hunter reacts, but not fast enough, and the ice embeds itself deep in his leg.

Hunter cries out and falls to the floor- ice forms below Caitlin's feet again, growing across the room in ever-expanding circles.

"Barry," Caitlin says, and he's quick to respond. He hurries over to the boy and eases the IV drip out of his arm, undoing the straps around his wrists and ankles; the boy can't be older than twelve, going in and out of consciousness. This could've been Iris, and it could've been his mom; this was Caitlin for two months and no one ever- How does this world allow this kind of evil?

From a corner of his eye he watches Hunter stagger to his feet, the tips of his fingers blackening from frostbite.

"I should've cut out your heart when I had the chance." Hunter grinds his teeth together, grabbing for his tools with little to no avail- he can no longer feel his fingers, and every tool tumbles to the cold concrete floor with a metal cling.

"But I wanted you to suffer," Hunter says, his eyes darkening. "I wanted you to _burn_."

"Barry, go," Caitlin says.

He slides an arm underneath the boy's shoulders and one underneath his knees. "Caitlin, I-" he stutters as he lifts the boy off the gurney, the entirety of the room slowly covering in one layer of ice after the other- he shivers, and the cold reaches all the way into his lungs as he breathes. If he stays he'll freeze to death.

"Go," she insists, and approaches Hunter with great care, reaching down for an amputation knife.

His eyes skip to the man on the floor, fully incapacitated and about to meet his end, and then down at the boy in his arm, starting to shiver too.

He promised he'd see this through. This is why he brought her here.

Following his instincts, Barry leaves the basement and carries the boy up the stairs, through the dark house, and lays him down on the backseat of the car.

"It's okay," he tells the boy, and takes off his jacket to get him warmer. He starts the motor running and turns on the heating. "You're going to be okay."

A scream sounds from inside the house, though this time, when he makes his way inside, he doesn't thrum with the same urgency as before- he knows what he brought Caitlin here to do, and he knows what he'll find.

He finds her in the basement standing over Hunter's lifeless body. Her eyes are a bright unwavering white that matches her hair, but her shoulders no longer shake. She stands steady and tall, as if she's found the calm in the eye of the storm.

There's blood on her chin and blood dripping off the knife in her hand, leaving big red splotches on the ice beneath her feet.

Hunter thought he'd left her to die, thought he'd left her to the predators.

He never realized she was one all along.

"Caitlin?" he asks, and she looks at him, her eyes filled with tears.

The knife drops to the floor.

"Are you okay?"

But before he gets the chance to hear her reply, before he can cross the distance, a deep rumble roars from well below their feet.

And the entire room starts shaking.

He staggers a step back, skidding backwards on the ice, and a fissure cracks the concrete between his feet. An earthquake? Here?

"Barry!" Caitlin cries, forced back against one of the basement walls.

"Caitlin!" he calls and holds out a hand for her, the crack widening with an ear deafening thunder- he couldn't get to her if he tried, the rift cuts in between them, but Caitlin's fast and agile on the ice, and jumps over open cracks of concrete.

Catching Caitlin in his arms Barry stumbles and struggles to maintain his balance, blocks of concrete spiraling upwards towards the ceiling, the earthy scent of dark soil overwhelming. And like the claws of some unholy monster, thick black roots reach up around Hunter Zolomon's ankles, around his knees, and wrists, and his arms, around his tools and the gurney and anything that left a trace of the horrors that happened down here- and drag him into the earth beneath.

Caitlin cries into his chest and he holds her as close as he can. Are they next? Will the ground swallow them up too for their sins? Is this what it has all led to?

But he's no sooner had the thought or the ground starts closing up again, with as much ruckus as it'd all started- the soil returns beneath the floor, and the concrete knits together again, each grain in the stone where it'd been mere minutes ago.

As if nothing happened at all.

Silence returns, but for the sound of his and Caitlin's breathing.

 _.. safe now ..._

—something whispers in Barry's peripheral vision, and he releases the breath he'd been holding. It's over. Caitlin's bad man is gone, her demon defeated and erased, and no one will miss him.

"Thank you," he whispers, his arms slowly loosening around Caitlin.

"Are you okay?" He pulls back, and finds her eyes, and they're- they're big and frightened, but their color has changed. Instead of the pearly white he'd gotten used to, they've become that lively brown he saw in a picture not too long ago.

How is that possible?

"Caitlin?"

Blinking a few times, Caitlin nods.

"Safe now," she echoes the voices in the room with them, and settles against his chest again. Her ear lands over his heart, which beats to a tune he doesn't recognize. "Bad man gone."

Barry closes his eyes and tightens his arms around her, one hand stroking her long white hair. His mind races around the magnitude of what he's done, of what he's helped Caitlin do; a terrible man has gone, but he was still a man, a human being, his Light now gone from this world—

No. How had that Light served any purpose?

Hunter Zolomon turned Caitlin into something hungry, leaving the girl inside clawing upwards through the dirt for a breath of fresh air, a ray of sunlight. Hunter Zolomon made her forget the girl, and as far as he's concerned he's not done slaying dragons for her.

Or, rather, helping her slay dragons.

Was it all worth the guilt and fear of the past few days? Was it worth the lies he told his dad? Worth the life he let her take to save herself, save the boy, save other future victims?

No matter the answer he's tied to Caitlin in ways he never has been to anyone; they've forged a bond few others shared, and if the time ever comes to say goodbye and leave her with her family, he knows that'll be hard for him to accept. How can life ever be normal again, after what they went through?

They drive back in silence, with the boy –Bruno- slowly waking up in the backseat. Dr Wells immediately tends to the boy and sets everything in motion to get him home. Jesse, in the mean time, helps Caitlin upstairs.

No words are wasted asking about what happened, or what they did, because surely Dr Wells knows. That's why he'd let them go.

And for the first time that day, he allows himself to breathe.

 _... thank you, Barry.._

He laughs, but there's little joy behind it. He's tired, and his heart burns for every life he's touched this past week, and for no one more than Caitlin; because her demons may be vanquished, but her journey hasn't ended, and he understands scars better than most. It'll always hurt, one way or another, whether it's a good kind of hurt or not.

Upstairs, he runs into Jesse.

"She's asking for you."

He nods, and pushes past Jesse, but not before stopping her. "Hey, Jesse?"

Jesse turns to look at him.

"Thank you, for all your help," he says, suddenly fearful he hasn't said it often enough. "I don't know what I would've done without you and your dad."

"Don't worry," Jesse smiles, and winks. "We're used to picking up strays."

Barry chuckles, then frowns to himself as he makes his way to the bathroom. Who exactly was she calling a stray here?

"Caitlin?" he calls outside of the bedroom door, and knocks. There's no reply.

He pushes into the room carefully, making sure he isn't waking her, but the room's dark, the only source of lighting coming from the bathroom.

Of course.

Taking a deep breath he prepares for another one of these encounters. Luckily, once he opens the door, he notices there's at least soap and foam and bubbles on the water's surface that hide Caitlin's naked body.

"We need to stop having conversations like these," he quips, and settles on the floor by the tub, like he had back at the house. Here is safer, though, here is open and free and Caitlin can go wherever she wants.

Caitlin's fingers trip into his hairline.

And his eyes fall to the blood on her chin. Had he made her a monster by letting her be one? Or had he allowed a wounded bird its claws? He's not sure it matters anymore.

Barry grabs a washcloth Jesse left on a stool by the tub and dips it into the water, which he's not at all surprised to find is freezing cold. He applies it gently to her skin, letting it soak a few moments before he swipes, taking the blood with it.

Caitlin's eyes never leave his face.

He flashes back to her in that room- her feral white eyes, blood dripping off the knife in her hand, and the shadow of a smile curled around a corner of her mouth. He'd let go of something in that moment, something he'd held tight to his chest and might call moral grandstanding. There was a time, perhaps not even that long ago, he would've viewed her actions as reprehensible, worthy of punishment in their own right.

Squeezing the washcloth of its excess of water Barry touches it carefully to her chin again, wiping away the blood one speck at a time.

But he'd stood in awe at the sight of her, of the hint of beast inside the beauty, remorseless in her anger, and towering over the man who'd caused her and however many others so much pain- and he lived with that need for vengeance all the same.

So he forgave her for it.

He forgave Caitlin and he forgave himself his neglect of magic; he forgave his dad for limiting his choices, and the boy who got lost for being young and naïve.

"Barry," sounds his name softly as a tear runs down his cheek.

Barry sniffles, and looks into Caitlin's eyes, still bewildered by the change in them. He could drown in them, he thinks, if he stared too long, if he gave Caitlin that power. Maybe he has already.

"Thank you."

"I don't deserve anyone's gratitude. I-" He shakes his head and wipes at his cheek. He did terrible things in the name of his fear, or his morality, whichever hadn't come first; his guilt shouldn't give him a reprieve from that now.

Things could've been different, if he'd taken his dad to see her, if he hadn't assumed the worst after Zacharia died, if he'd just continued seeing her as that same girl he'd found in the attic- someone in need of his help.

"You helped me," Caitlin says, and next her fingers land on his lips again, stealing his breath away- her eyes follow the line her fingers draw to a corner of his mouth, where she pushes a little harder, as if willing him to smile.

And so he does smile, followed by a small laugh. Whatever he did he's happy he could be there for her, and help her see more clearly, but he's afraid he's gotten more out of this than she has so far- her outer shell, if he can call it that, is still showing, still protecting her, even if the color of her eyes betrays a small breach in her armor.

Unconsciously, Barry pushes her hair back, tucking it behind her left ear.

"Thank you for letting me," he says, voice dipping lower around all the conflicting sensations bubbling to the surface. Would he have made his mom proud today?

Drawing in a shuddery breath, Barry decides to let it go; dwelling on what's done, or the past, only ever got him stuck in a spiral of thoughts there's no escaping from- he can't undo the past anymore than he can carry Caitlin's pain, but he can look to the future.

He pulls Caitlin's picture up on his phone, and holds it up for her to see.

And the same quiet shock of sadness washes down her face.

"Caitlin," she says.

"I told you I'd find you. Caitlin Snow."

She looks to him again, questions bigger than she can contain showing in her eyes- that's her name, but who is she? Where is she from? Does she still have family waiting for her? Can she remember them?

"Before the bad man."

Barry cups her cheek. "He can't hurt you anymore."

Caitlin nods, leaning into his touch. "Hunter's gone."

"Yeah," he whispers.

Things can change for the better now; she's out of that house and the man who hurt her will never come back. She's a beautiful girl with a wonderfully apt name, making her way out of the dark little by little- and he for one can't wait to meet her.

.

 **tbc**

.

*New cover image made by **snowcaitlin** , THANK YOU!

*I didn't realize this chapter would get quite so massive but thanks to all for your patience with me! Next chapter will be the last one : )


	5. Chapter 5

.

 **& LOVE HER ANYWAY**

part five

.

.

"Once upon a time,"

Barry opens his eyes.

He blinks a few times, thinking he can chase away the memory of his childhood bedroom stretched above him.

But he can't shake it.

Blinking again, his eyes fall to the aquarium at the foot of the bed, the dinosaur sheets he hasn't owned in years, and his ears perk at the sound of a voice—

One he knows, all too well.

"When the days were long, and the nights were deep, the Dark dwelled in the fringes of the human world."

Looking to his left, he startles upright instantly, a breath caught at the back of his throat, tears springing to his eyes at the sight of his mom's beautiful red hair gleaming in the moonlight, at her soft mesmerizing smile, and skin that shines as if kissed by diamonds.

Sitting right there next to him; a memory, a ghost? A dream?

He must be dreaming.

"Each night it tried to invade, and each night it failed, beat back by the Light that lived in every living being."

"M-Mom?" Barry asks, voice trembling, his heart attempting to break free from his chest, while every cell in his body means to pull closer, hug his mom tight, and never let her go again.

His mom finds his eyes and all oxygen leaves his lungs- how is he here? How is _she here_? Where-? How-?

"Yes, my beautiful boy?" his mom says, and smiles that smile reserved for him alone, the kind that brimmed with her love and honesty and kindness; time hasn't touched her or his memory of her, so crystal clear it might as well be a photograph.

"How is this possible?" he breathes, and simultaneously accepts it isn't real, because it can't be. A demon took his mom, and he's been living in the reality of that for fourteen years. And it's been so hard, and there were times it felt like hell itself, but he- he's accepted it. Hasn't he?

"Do you really need to ask?"

No. He doesn't.

But why would magic put him through this?

"I was stolen from you, Barry."

Tears fill his mom's eyes, and her hands land on his face, and it's all he can do to keep from crumbling to ten million pieces at once; he leans in and grabs around her wrists, and it's real, it's so real he'd swear she's come back to life, or he travelled back through time to see her.

"But you're never without me."

She draws a hand through his hair, and he nods- he carries her with him, he knows that, in his heart, in his memories, in his love and respect for nature and magic. Some part of her will always live inside him.

"My magic runs through your veins."

He chuckles, though it's cheerless- all this talk of magic, everyone insisting it was passed on to him, when will that end? He can hardly stand to hear it anymore. He wasn't like her, or her family before her, but he was her son, and she was his mom, and that's all that mattered.

Barry leans into his mom's touch, and cries, "I miss you so much."

"It's okay, Barry," his mom whispers, and pulls him to her, wrapping her arms around him and rocking him back and forth. "I'm here."

Fingers twisting in her red hair, he holds onto his mom for dear life, for however long he's allowed. Why did she ever have to go? Why did she have to die? They're all questions he paused over so many times they drove him insane- his grief is carved in every chamber of his heart, yet he's learned to live with it. There isn't a day that goes by that he doesn't think about his mom, and that's been especially true these past few days.

He's never felt more connected to her- ever since that first call in the forest.

 _.. I'm always here ..._

Barry wakes with a start, arms flailing and he sits up in a cold sweat trying to get his bearings. Where is he?

His eyes shoot across the unknown room, blurred by the tears in his eyes, and, startled, he rubs over the hurt over his heart, a scorching burn mark this time, sure to leave a trace. He covers a hand over his mouth and whines, tears spilling over from his dream; the dreams that'd come to him over the past four weeks had been hard to handle, but this? What was this?

He can't decide if it was cruel or kind of magic to grant him that moment with his mom, and was it even real? Could he talk to her, like that, in his dreams? Or was it nothing but a deception, Oni creeping into his mind and making him see what he wanted?

In the bathroom, he splashes some water in his face and stares at his reflection in the mirror. Nothing's changed. He's his mother's son and he'll continue trying to make her proud, carry her with him because how could he ever not? She's a part of him as surely as his dad is, and he can no longer push that away. He won't.

He needs to give magic a place in his life that honors his mom's memory.

Still shaken and disoriented, his next thought is to check on Caitlin.

She's been through too much, both here and back in North Hollow, not to be haunted by nightmares, and he's left to wonder if she slept at all. If she's been sleeping these past two months.

Oddly, he finds her room empty; the bed's been slept in, and she's clearly rifled through the clothes Jesse offered yesterday, but she must've needed an escape elsewhere.

So he makes his way downstairs, following the sizzling sound of something cooking, and the faint scent of coffee.

He's never been in this part of the house, but he's not at all surprised to find a massive kitchen, the room centered on a heavy oak table that can easily seat twelve people. The paneled windows look out over the grand garden outside, the green grass and imposing trees seemingly untouched by the seasons- he'd failed to notice that yesterday. Maybe they're not anywhere, but somewhere in between; the voices that guided him spoke from those same places, the unseen in-between.

Bruno, the young boy they'd saved yesterday, sits at a corner of the table, carefully sipping from a glass of orange juice, Dr Wells next to him in his wheelchair. His skin's no longer red; instead it's a russet, reddish-brown, though he still looks awfully pale.

"Morning," he calls, drawing Jesse's attention away from whatever she's frying, and Dr Wells from the quiet conversation he shared with Bruno.

"Good morning, Mr Allen," Dr Wells says, and wheels over to him.

"Did you sleep well?" Jesse asks.

"Not"—He scratches the back of his neck before he can reconsider his reply—"really."

Jesse grimaces. He should've probably kept that to himself; Dr Wells and Jesse have been kind enough to open their home to him; the least he can do is repay that kindness with something positive. No one needs to know he dreamt about his mom.

"How's he doing?" he asks Dr Wells, as much as a distraction as it is genuine concern for Bruno's wellbeing. According to Dr Wells he'd only been missing for a few days, but trauma never needed long to leave its mark.

"I don't think he remembers much of what happened to him," Dr Wells says, speaking in a low even tone. "His parents will be here in a few hours."

He should be grateful for those smaller mercies, even though he suspects memory plays only a small part in living with traumatic experiences; all he can think about is Caitlin, and how it wasn't a few days for her. For Caitlin, it'd been two months of torture, of being drugged and pushed to the limit, of having blood drawn and getting deprived, of being locked up like an animal.

How is she meant to recover?

"You saved his life, Barry," comes Dr Wells' voice, his pained expression misconstrued as directed towards Bruno- in truth he feels it for all those souls who were lost to Hunters, killed by demons, cut down, and for what? What's the use?

"Caitlin did," he corrects. He won't take credit for what happened last night; he'll gladly take the blame should anyone come asking, but he didn't save anyone. Caitlin saved Bruno, and she saved herself in the process.

"She's out in the garden."

Barry makes himself a cup of coffee, and prepares some tea for Caitlin, and heads out into the garden, where he's once again overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the landscape; the trees bordering the garden to his left must be hundred of years old maples, as well as the pines and cedars in the far distance, visible across the lake.

He finds Caitlin by the water, staring down at her own reflection.

"Hey," he says, and places their mugs in the grass, sitting down next to her.

If Caitlin hears him, she chooses not to respond. Instead, she studies her reflection more closely, and dips a finger into the water, starting it rippling in circles. She sits back, her lower lip jutting out, like she's contemplating the weight of the entire world.

"Not Caitlin," she huffs.

"Yeah, it is." He nods, unable to suppress a small smile. Jokingly, he pokes at her arm. "You're right here."

Caitlin looks at him, her brown eyes so much softer than the piercing white he got used to. To be honest, he's not sure which color he preferred, even if the change is a good sign; he knows that girl in the picture he found is sitting in front of him right now, in disguise, and it's merely a matter of finding some way behind that mask.

Folding her legs Caitlin settles next to him in the grass, before she reaches over a hand and touches his cheek.

Barry suppresses a shiver.

"Cold," Caitlin says, making her point, but while she's obviously cold to the touch, it's never bothered him. Considering how he'd found her in that attic, he's glad she's cold now. Cold makes her stronger.

So he takes her hand, and folds it in between both of his, making little to no impact on her body temperature. But it's not about that, or about how different they are, or about what separated them- he merely hopes to be heard. "The cold is part of who you are," he says, "Jötunn, like you, are capable of changing the natural world."

"Is that"—Caitlin's eyes flicker up and down his face—"bad?"

"No." He smiles. "Not at all."

Caitlin averts her eyes, and bites at her lower lip. That's new.

They sit like that for a while, sipping tea and coffee, one-handed, because Caitlin doesn't release his left hand. He looks out over the lake, peaceful but for the occasional fish nipping at the surface of the water, and back at the house, over the green sea of grass, and, unsurprising, he's reminded of his mom. How could he not be, surrounded by this brilliant slice of nature?

"My mom," he says, prompted by his memories, "she could reach her fingers inside the earth and let something grow. Flowers. Plants. Entire trees."

Caitlin stares down at their locked hands. "I would hurt."

"What I'm trying to say—" he chuckles, oddly enamored by her persistence not to hear what he's saying, "is that there are plants that need the cold to thrive. They can't survive any other way."

There's a reason the woodland spirits guided him to her, why they wanted her to be saved; talking to Dr Wells led him to believe there weren't many others like her, and it's so clear something greater than both of them needed her to survive. All life is precious, big or small, good or bad, hot or cold. Each life matters.

"Have you ever heard of 'vernalization'?"

Caitlin shakes her head, even though he suspects Caitlin Snow, the biochemist, might have some clue what he's talking about.

"It's a process some plants have to go through," he says, recalling his mom's lessons as if he learned them yesterday; a little boy sat on her lap, watching flowers sprout at the touch of her fingers. "The seeds have to go through a period of cold in order to blossom in the spring. The plants go dormant, and if they're not cold enough for long enough they won't flower at all."

Quite unexpectedly, a subtle smile sets along Caitlin's lips. How beautiful she looks with a smile, how radiant and light- if he didn't already know her pale skin and white hair were like armor to her, keeping her safe from a harsh world, he'd never want her to change. She's perfect, like this.

"Everyone always talks about winter like it kills everything," he says, "like it leaves nothing alive, but that's not true."

Caitlin raises their hands, and lays the palm of her hand flat against his, stretching out their fingers- until a small shift allows her to folds hers between his, and like his mom, who could reach her fingers into fresh soil and start flowers blooming, his fingers intertwining with Caitlin starts something growing in his chest.

"Winter is beautiful, and- pristine," he says, struggling more and more to find the right words, because winter sits personified in front of him, and there are few words that will do. A whole entire forest roots outwards from his heart, branches off into his lungs and leafs through his veins in every color of fall.

For the first time in forever, he's exactly where he needs to be.

"So beautiful," he whispers, and brushes Caitlin's stark-white hair back behind her ear, a streak of it spiraling into a deep auburn before his very eyes. Barry's lips part.

Caitlin shies away, her cheeks kissed by a hint of pink that unmasks some of the girl inside.

And he catches himself.

What is he doing?

It's been obvious for a while now that Caitlin wound herself around his heart, wholly involuntarily, and it'd ensured his continued devotion to helping her. Now he thinks maybe he likes her there, and he not too subtly means to do the same.

But he can't.

He's not the hero of this story, and she's not the damsel in distress- he brought her here to fight dragons, like he came to face his demons, and—

Caught up in a flurry of confusing thoughts, Barry averts his eyes, and changes the subject. He can't get lost in this line of thinking; he doesn't want anything from Caitlin besides her recovery.

"Do you think," he starts, biting at his lip, "maybe- you'd be up for calling your mom?"

The corners of Caitlin's mouth draw down. "I'm not Caitlin," she says. "Not yet."

Barry nods.

He understands.

She means to be more herself before she returns home.

 _... safe .._

The following morning, once he finds Caitlin's room empty again, he comes down the stairs, where a familiar face greets him- those dark brown eyes still the same, that mischievous little smile.

"Iris?" her name falls from his lips so naturally it's like he's spoken it every day since the day he moved to North Hollow. What's she doing here?

Iris runs over and jumps straight into his arms, barely giving him time to catch her. But that's Iris West; full of life and impulses, rebellious if not a stickler for protocol; she's every bit her mom as she is her dad, and it's the most welcome thing to recognize of all.

"Barry!" she squeals, and pulls back, taking in his face, while he openly does the same to her. She hasn't changed a bit; she's every bit that same girl who burned with a fire brighter than her mom's and felt everything much deeper than her dad- though she's aged with a grace entirely her own.

"My dad said you were in town," she says, beaming, and punches him in the shoulder. "Why didn't you come see me?"

"Did he tell you why?" Barry asks, and rubs at his shoulder, even though Iris' playful punch didn't hurt, and, as Iris shakes her head, he mentally prepares for telling her the story in somewhat more detail than he had Joe. There's little harm in telling more of the truth now that Hunter Zolomon's gone. Iris will understand why he did what he did, why he helped her, and she won't betray his trust.

He takes her into the living room, where they have a good view of the greenhouse; Caitlin's inside helping Jesse with some of the plants.

By the time he finishes the story Iris has wandered over to the window, and watches Caitlin make her way out into the garden.

"Poor girl," she muses, and he can't help but wonder if she's thinking about her mom right now; how can she not, when Francine and Caitlin went through the same thing?

Iris sits down next to him. "You did the right thing, getting her out of that house."

Sometimes he worries he hasn't done a single thing right since the day he met Caitlin; he should've gotten her out of that house right away, taken her to see his dad, brought her to a hospital- anything but let her stay in that prison.

"Barry Allen." Iris curls a hand around one of his. "Would you stop worrying?"

He smiles at that, because if he feared time destroyed any friendship he had with Iris he's gravely mistaken; like Joe, who'd embraced him like a son after all these years, Iris is still the best friend imaginable.

"You have to trust that magic led you to her for a reason."

Barry nods, though he isn't convinced- he can't see any reason why it couldn't have been anyone else wandering the forest that day.

"Come out with me tonight." Iris perks up and bumps their shoulders together. "Cisco's coming. And I'd love for you to meet my boyfriend."

As he looks at Iris sideways, time touching every aspect of their relationship, he's back to questioning his path. Where does it lead? Where does it lie? Is it still possible for him to change its course? And if so, what would he choose? Would he go back to life in North Hollow, finish his online degree, and try to pick up a second one right after? Or would he defy the choices his dad made for him and come to the city to study, to live, _to love_?

In North Hollow he doesn't have a whole lot besides his dad, and here he has Iris, never truly lost to him, and Cisco apparently, and that future envisioned for him long ago. But he's all too aware it's someone else's vision, not his own. He hasn't figured out his own.

"Mind if I talk to her?" Iris's voice draws him out of worrisome and complicated thoughts.

"Hmm?" His eyebrows shoot up, following Iris' line of sight outside. "Not at all. She can always- use more friends."

Iris smiles. "You haven't changed one bit, Barry Allen."

That's something, he guesses. It's nice to imagine Iris still feels their connection as strongly as he does, and it's not his mind playing tricks on him.

.

Iris spends the better part of the morning talking to Caitlin, and he can vividly picture her doing that as a professional, talking to people about what happened to them, helping those in need.

They have lunch together, before Iris leaves to attend an important lecture.

In the afternoon Jesse shows them around the grounds, their full extent far greater than anything he could've imagined. The house, or rather, the small castle, stood on its own in a wide-open landscape, nothing but nature as far as the eye could see on every side, an in-between place, an oasis of Dr Wells' own making many years ago.

"The front door is a portal," Jesse explains, walking barefoot- Caitlin's clearly given her a taste for it. "It can lead to many different places, and it's what keeps us safe here."

"Safe from what?" he asks.

"Anyone who might want to do us harm."

.

Later that night, he goes out with Iris, assured that Caitlin's in the best possible hands with Jesse and Dr Wells. He's unsure of what to wear, since North Hollow didn't have bars or nightclubs like the city, and he's never gone out on a night on the town before. He decides on a pair of regular jeans and a dark shirt, along with a light jacket.

A light jacket he instantly regrets, because while he'd been enjoying the smooth weather of Dr Wells' in-between world, the real world caught up and winter had truly started. His breath comes white and foggy, and cold sets around his toes and fingertips- it makes it seem like he's been away from the world for ages, even though it's barely been two days.

Iris takes him to a quiet little café downtown, and introduces him to her boyfriend, Eddie, whom he vaguely recognizes from the precinct Joe worked- he doesn't have the heart to ask Iris what her dad thinks about her dating a fellow police officer. He might get punched much harder this time.

He talks and reminisces with them and Cisco for a few hours, and he catches a glimpse of it; the life that never was, the life that could still be, so close within his grasp.

Caitlin goes to school near the city too, they could—

"So." Iris sits down next to him, minutes after Cisco's left him alone to go talk to some girls at the bar. "Any special girl in your life?"

"Not- really." He clears his throat, trying hard to pretend he hadn't been thinking about Caitlin but a moment ago. "Or, at all."

"Really?"

"I've been homeschooled since I was ten, Iris." He chuckles. "And there aren't that many girls in North Hollow my age."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He takes a sip from his rum and coke. "It hasn't really been on my mind."

And in truth, it hasn't. Girls haven't been on his mind that way until very recently, and the realization that it might've started as late as yesterday starts him worrying over his own sanity.

Because he can't. Not with Caitlin. Not after everything she's been through.

But as he sits surrounded by parts of his old life, meandering into a possible future, his thoughts drift to Caitlin, time and time again. He keeps leaving her behind, keeps leaving her alone with her nightmares.

Some hero, he is.

He heads back to Dr Wells' somewhere around midnight, letting himself in with a key Dr Wells had so graciously offered. The house is quiet, and dark, and he's slow to climb the stairs up to his room.

That is until he hears Caitlin screaming.

His heart jumps, a hurried panic rushes into his extremities, and he's running before he knows it, up the stairs, down the hallway, falling into Caitlin's room a mess of limbs.

He freezes on the spot seeing the state of the room; the bed below Caitlin frozen, ice crawling up the walls and over the floor- she tosses and turns in the bed, and whines, followed by another scream.

Within two seconds he's by her side, ice cracking beneath his knees as he crawls onto the bed, and brushes her hair from her face.

"Caitlin." He touches her cheek. "Hey."

And he winces- her skin's ice cold and her hair turned white again, but he's not dissuaded. With all the bravery he has he pulls her closer and cups the back of her head, shaking gently to wake her from her nightmare.

"Caitlin, wake up," he pleads, while she trashes on the bed.

Leaning in, he brings his lips to a forehead and plants a kiss to her skin, and then she shoots up wide awake, straight into his arms. He catches a bare glimpse of her eyes, all white again, like any progress they made got erased, and his arms wind around her with no other thought than to soothe, to heal, to hold all her broken pieces together.

"Hey, it's okay," he hushes, stroking her hair. He should never have gone out and left her. What was he thinking? Every step he's taken these past two days has been for Caitlin, to help her through the most horrific thing that could befall a person, and he goes and leaves her alone.

"It's okay," he whispers, rocking her back and forth in his arms. "It was just a dream."

"Safe?" she cries into his shoulder, clutching around his arms, sending his body temperature dropping too low to be healthy. But he doesn't let go, he can't, not ever again.

"Yes," he assures, "you're safe", and prays with all his might that that's a promise he can keep, that the words will become a mantra that sink into her bones and thoughts and genetic make-up. It's all he wants. He just wants her safe.

In all the commotion, Jesse soon comes running too. "Is she okay?" Her eyes are wide, and frightened, especially once she takes in the room. "I checked on her earlier. She seemed fine."

"She just had a bad dream," he says, "that's all."

Jesse tiptoes inside with the greatest caution. "We have more rooms where she can-"

"No," he reacts instinctually, "I'm going to stay with her."

"I'll- turn up the thermostat," Jesse quips, and leaves the room again.

"Bad man." Caitlin sniffles. "Can't hurt me."

"No, he can't." Barry pushes his lips to her hair and closes his eyes.

Is this why she gets up so early every morning? Because she has bad dreams?

"He can never hurt you again."

He can't leave her like this, and they can't stay in here- she'll probably be fine, but he'll catch his death if he remains in this cold all night.

So, with her arms folded tight around his neck, he carries her to his room, and helps her underneath the sheets. He shrugs into a warm sweater, and lies down beside her, but she's quick to seek out comfort in his arms again- she lies her head down on his chest, her temperature somewhat stabilized, and tries to fall asleep again.

Too wired and worried to even try to sleep right now, he draws soothing lines down her back, and tries not to think about the steps she's fallen back. Progress doesn't happen overnight, he knows that, and maybe the hope that she was getting better came too soon.

Then again, everyone has nightmares, from time to time.

 _.. wake up..._

A hesitant ray of sunlight peeks through the curtains and falls over his eyes, the early morning sun whimsical and sweet- the inside of his eyelids colors red for a moment, whisking him from a dreamless sleep.

He's warm, still wearing last night's clothes and a sweater that's far too thick without—

Realization sinks in.

Caitlin's no longer in his arms.

Barry rubs at his eyes and leans up on his elbows, blinking at the sleep still caught in his eyes, slowly adjusting to the light falling in through the windows. He hadn't thought to catch any sleep with Caitlin's cold body pressed up against him, but she'd grown steadily warmer during the night- that would've worried him had her sleep not been devoid of more nightmares. She'd slept soundly, as far as he's aware.

Had she snuck downstairs again now?

But no, the sunlight doesn't dance on its own- a shadow crosses the window, and he soon finds Caitlin backlit in front of it, a black figure he can't make out.

He gets up and walks over, drawn to her like a moth to flame.

"Caitlin?" he asks, eyes narrowing.

But the girl that turns to him isn't a girl he's met before, not up in that attic, or any of the days that followed. This girl, she's the beaming soft brunette from the picture attached to her missing persons' file; not cold, but stunningly warm.

She smiles at him somewhat shy. "Hello, Barry."

Caitlin Snow. 22 years old. Biochemistry student.

And all he can do is stand there and gape at her. Gone is her pale complexion and blue lips, her pinpoint stare- the grace he found in Iris yesterday holds Caitlin together too, in her straight shoulders and back, and the softer lines of her body.

She holds out her right hand. "It's nice to meet you."

A laugh escapes him, and his eyes skip down to the hand she offers, a hand he's held before yet somehow it's not quite the same. He reckons she feels that too, or she wouldn't stand on the formality.

He takes hold of her hand, still chilly to the touch, and shakes it. "It's nice to meet you too."

Silence falls, and they trade another awkward smile. Barry rolls his shoulders and slides his hands into his pockets to give himself something to do. Caitlin, in turn, averts her eyes, and draws in a deep breath.

"I don't really know what to say," she confesses, worrying her lower lip. It must be a Caitlin Snow thing, a small thick that betrays something's bothering her.

He's quite proud he manages to come up with anything to say at all. "How about we grab some breakfast?"

Caitlin nods.

Downstairs, Dr Wells and Jesse are at the breakfast table already, having a heated discussion over what sounds like the events leading up to the Franco-Prussian war, but he never gets the chance to find out- they both fall silent the moment Jesse's jaw drops, and they both take note of Caitlin.

Caitlin wrings her hands together.

"Miss Snow"—Dr Wells smiles warmly—"I'm glad to see you're feeling better."

"Thank you so much for your hospitality, Dr Wells," Caitlin says, awkward lines pulling around her mouth, "And Jesse. I don't know what I would've done without all of you."

Her eyes come around to him, and his heart skips a beat. There's this whole other girl standing next to him, and it's as much the girl he got to know as it isn't, and it's kind of confusing and weird and exciting at the same time. He didn't think her transformation would be this sudden.

"Come," Dr Wells says, pulling back a chair. "Join us."

Thankfully, they don't return to any discussion of history, but fall into a pleasant back and forth about biochemistry, of all things. Caitlin blushes, all too aware they do so to make her feel at ease, but she quickly joins in, talking about the subject with such passion he turns envious. That should be him; he should talk about chemistry and botany the same way, but his seclusion has always prevented that- he never had anyone to talk science with.

Could he, in the future, talk science with Caitlin?

Maybe it's a pipedream. Maybe it's a fantasy. Maybe he'll drop her off at home and never hear from her again, but it's a nice dream to have, for now.

"I know you want to get me home to my family," Caitlin says, as if she's still, even now, reading his mind.

And she's not wrong; he promised himself he'd see this all the way through, but he can hardly make her do anything she doesn't want to do.

"But I think there's some things I have to do first."

Barry frowns. He can imagine there are a lot of things she still has to deal with, but wouldn't that be easier around people who loved her? People who must miss her a great deal?

"Can you take me back?"

The moment he catches her eyes it's clear what she means- her doe eyes plead with him to hear her, but she doesn't even have to try. He'll take her wherever she needs to go, even if it means going back to that house in the woods.

"Are you sure?" he still asks, because her memories live there, and there's that room, and that godforsaken attic- what if it's more than she can handle?

Slowly, hesitantly, Caitlin reaches across the table for one of his hands. She curls her fingers around his, and there she is, the same girl who'd taken his hand no two days ago. She may have changed, she may look different, but she's still Caitlin. His little wolf.

She nods. "I'm sure."

 _... I'm here .._

"Once upon a time,"

Barry opens his eyes.

He blinks a few times, but his eyes quickly fall to the aquarium at the foot of the bed, the dinosaur sheets he remembers vividly, and he smiles at the sound of a voice—

One he knows, all too well.

"When the days were long, and the nights were deep, the Dark dwelled in the fringes of the human world."

Looking to his left, a breath still catches at the back of his throat, and tears still spring to his eyes at the sight of his mom's beautiful red hair, her soft mesmerizing smile, and skin that shines as if kissed by diamonds.

His mom, right there next to him.

"Each night it tried to invade, and each night it failed, beat back by the Light that lived in every living being."

"Inside me, too?" he asks, unable to resist the sweet rush of the memory.

His mom smiles that smile reserved for him alone, the kind that brimmed with her love and spilled over into his heart, and says, "Especially you, my beautiful boy."

He sits up to meet her eyes, the same they've always been in every memory and every dream. "Is this possible because I'm at Dr Wells'?"

"A+." His mom nods, and taps a finger at his nose.

"So once I leave-" He sighs, blinking away tears- this isn't the time to cry, not when he has the opportunity to talk to her, ask her questions, have her close if only for a moment longer than the world out there allowed.

His mom touches a hand to his cheek. "Once you leave you'll carry me with you."

Yes. Because she's his mom and he's her son, and each of her lessons will stay with him. And yet it still seems cruel to him, to be able to have this, to talk to her, knowing it will be over once he wakes up. Why does it always feel like he's saying goodbye to her?

If it has to be over he can make it count, each moment, every second, and his tongue weighs with his most pressing question. Why those dreams? Why those memories? Why all of them of her?

"Did you lead me to Caitlin?"

"She needed you"—his mom smiles knowingly, as if she's been there all along, watching him, guiding him, protecting both of them. Had she? Can she?— "and you needed her."

He huffs a rueful laugh. He might need Caitlin more than he's willing to admit at this point.

"You have a whole life ahead of you, Barry. My beautiful boy." His mom curls a finger beneath his chin, and forces him to look at her- he'll go blind if he stares too long; he'll see her, and only her, for all his days to come.

"Make sure it's full."

 _.. always ..._

The following morning he and Caitlin say goodbye to Dr Wells and Jesse, and leave for North Hollow. He hadn't thought to be going home so soon, but hopefully it's only a short pit stop, and Caitlin will want to go home after she deals with her unfinished business.

He can't pretend to understand why she needs to go back, why she needs to confront the memories of being locked up and neglected, but people deal with things in different ways. After his mom's death, he ran away. And while Caitlin isn't exactly jumping at the bit to go home, he suspects there are yet dragons to slay before she's ready.

"I can't wait to meet your dad," Caitlin says, as they wind through snowy-white landscapes, the fields right outside the city pristine and untouched, quiet and cold.

"Really?"

"Of course. You have a lot of love for him, I can tell."

"I've been lying to him."

"Why don't you try telling him the truth?" Caitlin asks. "It's a bold choice, I know, but he's your dad. He loves you. He'll understand."

Barry releases a slow even breath, his lungs open and free, if not somewhat straining. "You're amazing, Caitlin," he sighs. "Here you are, after everything you've been through, and you're giving me advice."

"From 'lessons in bedside manner.'" She adds the air quotes as she speaks, and he's left to wonder if she says it solely to lighten the mood. "That's what my dad taught me. He was a doctor too."

"So you're a biochemist, huh?

"Why?" Caitlin cocks a curious eyebrow. "Not what you were expecting?"

He shrugs, hands at the wheel, not sure what to say. He hadn't given this a whole lot of thought, back when he cut her chains and lowered her into the bathtub- he'd been so preoccupied with finding the girl he hadn't thought of her as _a real girl_ , with hopes and dreams of her own, with hobbies and interests. In his defense, she'd never spoken of them either.

Who ever thought they'd be sharing such lively conversations?

He glances at Caitlin, and they share a smile, before he focuses back on the road ahead.

Who ever thought he'd crave her company this much?

Four hours later, the trip taking much longer due to the snow, they arrive at North Hollow, where his dad's waiting for them outside the bungalow. He told him he'd be bringing someone, a friend, and left out any details, but Caitlin's right- his dad deserves the truth.

He hugs his dad as tight as he can, even though he has no reason to believe he'll think any less of him, and turns to Caitlin, who looks adorable in the blue wooly hat and matching scarf Jesse lent her.

"Dad, I'd like you to meet Caitlin Snow. Caitlin, this is my dad."

"Henry," his dad says, and shakes Caitlin's hand, but not before frowning. It must seem awfully confusing, him coming back home with a strange girl his dad's never heard of or seen before- he can't imagine what must be going through his dad's mind right now.

"There's something we- _I_ need to tell you."

He cracks his knuckles.

"Alright," his dad concedes. "Coffee, anyone?"

Soon, the three of them are seated at the kitchen table, and he starts at the very beginning: voices he had no reason to believe meant him any harm, led him into the forest, to a strange house, and to a girl chained up in the attic.

Caitlin swallows hard and casts down her eyes, making herself smaller where she sits, and he reaches out to hold her hand without thinking. She doesn't seem to mind, though, so he doesn't let go again.

He tells his dad how he found her, and how he helped her guided by his lessons, and how he'd returned to her day in day out trying to figure out who she was- how he got help from Dr Wells and Joe, and with their help, found the girl sitting next to him now.

He leaves out the part where he uncovered Hunter Zolomon's identity, and he drove Caitlin to his house so she could exact her revenge- he doesn't want to burden his dad with that knowledge.

"And I know I should've told you." He nods. "But I-"

Caitlin gives his hand a squeeze, scrunching up her nose. "He wanted me all to himself."

Like that, any tension that'd spun the room into frenzy fades away, and both he and his dad laugh. How Caitlin manages to joke at a time like this is beyond him.

"I am so sorry that happened to you, Caitlin," his dad says. "I hope whoever did this is brought to justice."

Caitlin nods, and he squeezes her hand in return. "Me too."

"I can't say I'm happy you've kept this from me, Barry." His dad looks at him, but his voice and his eyes are soft, so he knows that whatever follows won't break his heart.

He never truly believed his dad would turn his back on Caitlin.

It's like his mom said- he needed to help her himself.

"But you did what your mom would've done. You helped someone in need."

Always collecting strays, he thinks, as Joe's words spin before his eyes. Is that what Caitlin is? His first stray, like his dad was once his mom's? He can't say he likes the term, but it's a nice thought, to think he might be stuck with Caitlin.

.

That afternoon, after reassuring his dad they won't disappear on him, they head out into the woods together, wrapped up in a hat and scarf and mittens, thick winter coats and snow boots, the icy underground crackling each step of the way. He breathes in the rich scent of the barren landscape, the moss, the birdsong, the wind rustling like whispers through the trees.

Everything is dampened, each sound is softer and the wind somehow kinder, but the water they come to at the bridge still cascades unbroken, cutting a dark line through the white forest floor.

A lot of curious eyes turn their way as they cross the town square, past the suburbs, and they leave that all behind to pass down a narrow unpaved access road- it winds around trees, both saplings and elders, deeper and deeper into the woods.

They both know the way.

The first time he came here, a little over a week ago, the forest hadn't seemed so eerie- now when they come to the clearing the air is unforgiving and bites at his cheeks. Nature hasn't touched the house at all since they left, and it stands desolate and unyielding, all alone.

He looks at the house, and shivers.

It still appears out of place, even more so than usual; the air's cold and sterile, like a cold front eradicated every pocket of heat as some sort of punishment, the texture disquieting against his skin. It's too quiet and airless.

He turns to Caitlin, sobered at the sight of the tears in her eyes, threatening to spill over.

"Hey," he breathes, and closes the distance between them- he wishes he could take her panic and lock it up somewhere, throw away the key so that she'll never find it.

A tear runs down her cheek. "I can't go inside."

"You don't have to," he hushes.

"I think the Dark did come for me, up there." She motions to the attic, silent tears falling. "Promised to take the pain away."

"Must've been tempting," he says, and swallows hard. It shouldn't be all that surprising to hear, that the Dark would come to prey on her at her weakest, but he still has a hard time accepting it exists at all. Why did it have to come for Caitlin? Why his mom?

Caitlin nods mournfully, sucking in her lower lip.

"What made you say no?"

"My dad," she cries, gathering the courage to tell him more. She's so strong and she doesn't even know it- how can she not know it? Maybe he'll tell her, and keep telling her, pull her close and whisper it in her ear, how she saved herself and killed her own demons, and how little he had to do with that.

"When he died, I wished the pain would disappear," Caitlin says. "My mom and I pushed each other away, and I spent a lot of time on my own, and there were days when the pain was unbearable, but-"

He draws in a deep breath. "It's all that's left."

Caitlin smiles through her tears, and nods. "And the memories are that- good kind of hurt."

His heart burns, but Caitlin's right; it's a good kind of hurt, the kind that reminds him there's a balance to everything- good and evil, Light and Dark, love and hate.

"So I fought it, or a part of me did."

"You're shaking," he says, catching the notable shiver in Caitlin's shoulders, and, entirely unprompted, takes a step forward to rub at her arms.

"I'm cold." Caitlin sniffles, wiping away her tears. "I am part human, you know."

"So she's not-" He stutters, and awkwardly pulls his hands back, trying to explain his image of these two different girls in his mind's eye- but it's been the same girl all this time, " _you're_ not-"

"It's hard to explain." Caitlin frowns, and those three adorable worry lines set between her eyebrows. "I remember everything that happened like it was a dream. Like I was seeing everything through someone else's eyes."

"It's not usually like that?"

"Usually- it's me." Caitlin shrugs, confused as well by this dual image of herself. "This time- Dr Wells said I reached back to some archetypical past, whatever that means."

It's doubtful they'll ever truly know what it means, or how some savage part of her managed to come out and take all that pain so she wouldn't have to bear it alone. What matters is she's alive, and she managed to come back from it.

Barry catches Caitlin in small smile. "My dad used to call me Frosty, when I changed."

"You let him get away with that?"

"Rarely." Caitlin laughs. "He'd-" She touches two fingers to her lips, like she'd done to him quite a few times, "touch my lips like this, because he said whenever I told a lie I felt cold, and when I told the truth I was warm."

There it is, he thinks- Dr Wells may be right that Caitlin's Jötunn side retreated to some sort of instinctive past, but that gesture was Caitlin, a young Caitlin whose dad told her that's how he detected a lie. She remembered that, through layers and layers of trauma, in spite of everything she went through. She'd never gotten lost completely.

Both of them fall silent.

A hush falls over the clearing too reminiscent of that one-story house back in the city, of that basement and all that concrete- he can still see her in that room, bloody and broken, strong and weak at the same time, a chaos of unbalances. She left her anger in that house, so he's curious if her pain lives in this one, and if she's going to do something about it.

As he's about to speak, Caitlin beats him to it.

"You were right," she says, looking up at the house while the periwinkle leaves retreat back into the forest, like it knows what's going to happen. "It's not my prison anymore."

And then, with the flick of a switch, Caitlin shifts into the girl he got to know so well, her brown hair cascading down into white, her skin paling, and mist setting around her hands. All he can do is stand in awe of her, of her magic, yet again.

She looks back of her shoulder, still every bit Caitlin Snow but for her outward appearance, and cocks an eyebrow. "You might want to take a step back."

Barry trips a step back, anticipation jittering across his skin, and watches as Caitlin sinks down to the ground, slamming the palms of her hands down on the soil- ice shoots in a straight line towards the house, unhurriedly encasing the wood of the porch, winding around spokes and beams, tracing over the windows, up to the first floor and engulfing the roof.

The wood cracks beneath the ruthless force of the ice, becoming more and more brittle the lower the temperature drops. And like the spirits guiding him through the forest almost two weeks ago, nature comes to Caitlin's aid- the wind picks up, beating down on the house with such ferocious force the roof caves in. He wraps his arms around himself at the onslaught of the cutting gale, which steadily breaks down the house bit by bit.

Like that, the house disappears, her prison's gone, and all its tragedies with it.

Caitlin staggers upright, and he runs to her aid quickly; his mom used to get exhausted after using her magic too much- he can't imagine what kind of toll this took on Caitlin's body.

"Remind me never to get on your bad side," he jokes, steadying her around the waist.

When Caitlin giggles at that, he can truly see the change in her for the first time- her outer transformation had been obvious, but whatever broken girl he'd found in that attic, a place now forever destroyed, has gone. It's _Caitlin_ , like she said, the well-spoken biochemist slowly putting herself together again.

Her white hair turns brown again, and a lively color returns to her eyes, her skin a lovely pink.

The wind dies down, and snow trickles down into the clearing. Snowflakes kiss his skin and Caitlin's.

"Time for a new chapter." She smiles softly. "I think it's time for me to go home."

His heart can't help but sink a little at the sound of those words, but he nods. Of course, she has to go home, however reluctant he may be to leave her side; of course she wants to see her mom now that she feels somewhat more herself. North Hollow isn't her home.

They make their way back into town, basking in the transformation it's undergone in the wake of winter- each roof topped by snow, Christmas lights in every color of the rainbow lining hedges and doorways, a warm light emanating from inside every home, and every store, and every single window.

Of course, Caitlin has to go home.

"So, your mom," he says, "She's like you?"

Caitlin nods. "She didn't take my dad's name. She worried it was a little on the nose."

He snickers. " _Snow_. Yeah."

"She taught me everything I know about my powers," Caitlin says, "Like your mom."

"No." He shakes his head- though, hearing it from Caitlin now, it doesn't nearly leave the burn others' words have. "I don't have my mom's magic."

Caitlin halts in her tracks and turns to him. "What are you talking about?"

"I don't." He shrugs. "I don't mind, just- how it is, I guess."

"Barry"—Caitlin takes a meticulous step forward—"you do have magic."

He frowns, seized by the stark conviction in Caitlin's face, cemented in her hard stare, which softens as she speaks again. "You have the biggest heart of anyone I've ever met."

He scratches behind his ear. "That's not-"

A breath catches in his throat as Caitlin places a hand over his heart.

"Isn't it?" she asks, and he's at a loss for words. He's never thought of it that way, that while he might not have any active powers, he inherited his mom's heart and her compassion, her kindness and her care for others. He has some connection to nature, he's felt that in his bones ever since he was a young boy, but did that make him like his mom? Like Caitlin? Like Iris?

"I don't think you realize how many people would've left me there," Caitlin says. "Or wouldn't have come looking in the first place."

"I did have help."

"And why do you think that is?"

Barry raises an eyebrow. The spirits wanted Caitlin safe; they wanted her alive, and free- it probably didn't matter one bit to them who heard them, as long as they were, and he just happened to come along that day. But had it been only that day? Or had magic been sending him dreams long before that?

Caitlin rises a little on the tips of her toes, to catch his eyes, to appear taller, to make sure she's the one who's heard this time.

"Because they knew you'd listen," she answers her own question.

And he had.

He had listened.

 _... home.._

Barry brings Caitlin home, just in time for Christmas.

It's taken her a few more days, and it'll take months –maybe years- still to leave this all behind, but she's ready for this step, to be reunited with a family who feared they'd never see her again.

"Are you nervous?"

Caitlin draws in a deep breath, and from a corner of his eye he watches her draw her hands down her thighs, the tension in the car incrementally rising. "I'm worried- I'm not the same." She frowns, and returns to staring out the window, eyes setting in a thousand yard stare, lower lip slipping between her teeth.

And he has no certain answers for her. How could he, when he has no idea what she truly went through? Maybe she's not the same, and maybe she never will be, but he loves this version of her, changed or not.

"Just be as honest as you can with her," he says, hand wiring tight around the wheel.

Caitlin's eyes fall to him.

"She's your mom." He shrugs. "She loves you. She'll understand."

He's hesitant to give advice on such a sensitive subject, but he feels this stronger because of what Caitlin told him no week ago, when she sat next to him and helped him talk to his dad- Caitlin's mom has been told what happened to her, and he can't see why she of all people wouldn't respect Caitlin's trauma.

The car fills with the sound of a smile.

"How's that for bedside manner?" he quips, earning him an endearing giggle.

Deep down, in a place that can perhaps relate, he understands Caitlin worries for herself, that her day-to-day life won't be the same because there'll be things that remind her of Hunter, or that house, or that basement. That there'll be lasting side effects she hasn't accounted for yet- she's not worried, but scared, that she won't fit into her life anymore.

Knowing that shouldn't make him hopeful that she'll want to keep him in her life, but it does, anyway.

He's barely pulled up to the Snow house, or the front door of the Craftsman opens, and Caitlin's mom comes running, a hand clutched over her mouth to stop herself crying.

Caitlin turns to him, and unbuckles her seatbelt, pleading, "Promise me you won't go."

Before he can answer, though, she leaves the car and runs straight for her mother's arms.

But of course he won't go.

He'll never go.

Not if she doesn't want him to.

.

Christmas becomes Caitlin's coming home party, or her 'safe return' party, as she prefers to call it. He and his dad are invited, the detectives that investigated her disappearance, the neighbors who'd stood by Caitlin's mom these two long months, and friends of the family- they all come by to welcome Caitlin home.

Caitlin, on her part, puts on a brave face for everyone, another kind of mask he can see right through, for some reason, but she's driven by her gratitude and relief to be home. He can't help but admire that, her quiet strength when faced with adversity, the calm she can fake, effortlessly.

Still, somewhere during the evening, he finds Caitlin outside on the terrace, facing the cold to catch her breath. For a moment or two he thinks it might be best to give her space with her own thoughts, but he still doesn't like the idea of leaving her alone.

He opens the sliding door out to the terrace, the noises from inside catching her unaware.

"Sorry," he says, and closes the door again, before he walks over with a mug of hot chocolate. "Thought you might like this."

Caitlin folds both her hands around the mug, the heat of it quickly warming her fingers.

They stare out over the small garden, daylight slowly waning and making way for the stars and the mood lighting up in the night sky.

It's been a rollercoaster ride of a week, and he's kept his promise; he hasn't left her side once. Caitlin's mom took some convincing, but after she learned about everything that happened –including what happened to Hunter Zolomon- she'd made up the guestroom without hesitation. He'd have the time to feel like he was imposing, if he didn't need to be by Caitlin's side so badly, in return.

"How are you holding up?"

Caitlin purses her lips, which he's learned is a thing she does while she contemplates an answers. "I feel like- I was frozen for a really long time." She rolls her eyes at her own words. "Ironic, I know, but-"

"You've been stuck," he says, at the exact same time Caitlin breathes, "Thank you, Barry Allen."

Barry shrugs. "What for?"

"For finding me." Her eyebrows rise. "For bringing me home. For saving me."

Barry looks down at his shoes.

He didn't save her. Maybe, at best, he helped her save herself. Now that he has a little more perspective, he thinks these past two weeks have been as much his journey as they've been hers; he had lessons to learn and wonders to see, and a lot of things to come to terms with. But with Caitlin by his side, he was able to figure them out.

Caitlin inches a step closer, nearly stepping on his toes, and whispers, "Would you like to see a Christmas miracle?"

Barry blinks a few times, too taken by the red and blue and green Christmas light reflection in her eyes to answer. So he nods, a little dumbfounded, because Caitlin's eyes twinkle as surely as all the decorations, and flare a little whiter for one split second.

What is she doing?

He finds his answer much sooner than expected, when the temperature drops a few significant degrees, and he catches sight of something in the corner of his eye.

Snow, he thinks. Caitlin's making it snow.

Cold nips at his cheeks and the tip of his nose, and as the snow starts falling around them, each drop dwindling down faster than the one before, each slowly but surely succumbing to gravity, he stands sheltered by Caitlin's magic, like there's a glass bubble stretched over them.

But a few snowflakes touch them, kiss Caitlin's nose and cheeks and make her giggle, but most twinkle above their heads, each of them like a falling star, and he makes a wish on each of them—

He wishes her nightmares gone forever.

He wishes her scars will fade completely given enough time.

He wishes Hunter Zolomon becomes but a faint memory for both of them, and he wishes –however selfishly- that he'll get to be part of her life for a long time yet to come.

He wishes he'll find the answer to his most pressing questions; what does he do after this? What path does he go down and will it run parallel to Caitlin's?

If only wishing made it so.

He smiles down at Caitlin, who's fixed her eyes somewhere over their heads.

Directly above them dangles a branch of mistletoe.

Within seconds, his heart lodges itself in his throat. How had he not noticed that? He doesn't want Caitlin to think that's why he followed her outside.

"We don't have to-" he stutters, and coughs, but he's no sooner caught Caitlin's eye again or he's stunned into silence by her brilliant smile, the small giggle that follows, and her pushing up on her toes.

Did she know it was there?

Caitlin's lips touch his, and he breathes her in pushing back, eyes closing as he covers her warm lips with his- his hands slip around her waist and one of Caitlin's lands over his heart, beating with the strength of a snowstorm in the middle of winter.

Winter is beautiful and pristine, and, like his feelings for Caitlin, utterly indescribable. She's winter personified, and he takes root beside her, seeding deep into the ground, growing leaves and flowers from every pore of skin.

This is what he wants, and this is where he needs to be, and that's never been clearer to him. He kisses Caitlin, and she readily returns the kiss, which becomes something far more meaningful than respecting any Christmas tradition.

Too soon, the moment's over, and reality sets in again, but Caitlin's still right there shining by his side. She beams, brighter than any light he's ever seen. "Merry Christmas, Barry."

A laugh sputters out of him. "Merry Christmas, Caitlin."

She shivers, then, and he runs his hands up and down her arms. Pushing back her hair he thinks –not for the first time- how lucky he is that he got to see her through this, watch her anger and rebel, see her weak and struggling, and changing every step of the way. It's been a privilege and an honor, and somewhere, deep down, he suspects it might even be something more.

Time will tell.

"We should head back inside," he says, when he notices Caitlin's teeth clattering.

Caitlin giggles. "Before my mom sends out a search party."

And the ring of her laughter has never sounded quite so welcoming- if she can joke about this, even if it's on the outside for now, she'll get through this, wholly and fully.

 _.. follow your heart..._

 _... my beautiful boy .._

—sounds from an undetermined in-between, but the words sling around his heart and squeeze, tendrils of a memory pulling at him.

"Are you coming?" Caitlin asks, already half inside the house again.

"Y-yeah," he says. "I'll be right there."

Caitlin closes the sliding door behind her, shutting off the noises from the party- he's left with the snow and the wind, and, peeking out from under the soft layer of snow, a single snowdrop at his feet; the two white leaves, hanging down like pendulums make it a sprightly little flower, and a perfect example of plants that bloom in winter.

It hadn't been there before.

Had Caitlin's magic grown it?

 _.. always with you ..._

Tears shoot into his eyes. "Mom," he whispers.

It's not a question.

And it needs no answer.

He knows, no matter what, his mom's magic runs through his veins.

.

.

 **THE END**

.

* **HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!**

*and a massive THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to read this crazy-ass story, in particular all the lovelies that left reviews : )


End file.
